Bloody Evolution
by GlarnBoudin
Summary: The Swarm has headed into a hopeless battle against Amon. As a final countermeasure, the Queen of Blades sends a single spore pod through space to infect a new planet with the zerg and ensure the Swarm's legacy. It lands in a world where it and its kind will fit right in: a world of bloody evolution.
1. Arrival

**Note: This fanfiction is rated "Z" for zerg! Expect lots of bloodshed, acidic bile, spewed slime, and the general gore and grossness that our swarming friends are famous for! Also, this story takes place after Season 3 of RWBY and after the campaign in HoTS, so expect major spoilers! Now, on to the story!**

 **Starcraft is the rightful property of Blizzard Entertainment, and RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. The concept of the Successor, however, belongs to me.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: Arrival**

 **Outskirts of the Koprulu Sector, zerg Leviathan**

Despite the number of individual personalities currently traveling on the spacefaring Zerg Leviathan numbering in the single digits, the air was thick with tension aboard the organic ship. Zerglings paced and snapped at each other, Roaches hunkered down in an attempt to disguise themselves against the cavernous innards, Hydralisks clacked their scythe-like claws against one another, and even the mighty Ultralisks shifted from foot to foot, looking nervously from side to side. They could sense the stress coming from their Queen, and they did not like it.

Mere days ago, Sarah Kerrigan, also known as the Queen of Blades, had launched a massive invasion of the Dominion world of Korhal, culminating in thousands of zerg breaking into the planet's imperial palace and Kerrigan personally slaying the tyrannical ruler of the Dominion of Man, Arcturus Mengsk. Almost immediately after doing so, Kerrigan had ordered a planetwide evacuation of any and all zerg forces on Korhal, as well as from every zerg-occupied planet in the entire sector, preparing to go on the hunt for a foe the Swarm could not hope to beat: the god-like being Amon, the creature responsible for creating the Swarm in the first place. Such a proposition would have no doubt caused mutiny among a crew of Terrans or perhaps even Protoss, but the mindless hordes of the Swarm followed their Queen's command without question-millions of zerg were even now leaving their hives en masse, ready to die to enact their ruler's will. But it was clear that something still wasn't right.

The atmosphere inside the shopping mall-sized mouth of the Leviathan was no different from that of the rest of the living ship. Izsha hung from the roof of the chamber next to the infested Terran Stukov, both beings wondering to themselves why they had been summoned, and Dehaka and Zagara were giving each other death glares, ready to tear each other apart at a moment's notice. Kerrigan had summoned all of them to brief them about something-what it was, she did not say. Now, the gathered zerg waited impatiently for their leader to arrive and break the news to them.

"I do not suppose that _you_ know why we have been summoned, Stukov?" Zagara grumbled, never taking her eyes off of the Primal Zerg packleader.

"You know as much about this as I do, Broodmother," the infested Terran replied, the talons erupting from his shoulder flexing and unflexing anxiously. "I was given the psionic signal to await further instruction here from Kerrigan herself. There was nothing to discern what she could have meant by that."

"I know not. Just know that Queen summoned me. Not expecting _you_ , Broodmother." Dehaka growled, scratching at the fleshy ground with his hind foot like a bull preparing to charge.

"And what's _that_ supposed to mean, brute?!" Zagara cried, her mandibles twitching. "I am our Queen's second-in-command; of course I would be summoned to this meeting! It would be in your best interests to remember that _I_ am your superior, Dehaka!"

"I answer to Kerrigan, not you." The Primal Zerg snarled, his enormous right arm curling into a fist and smacking into his tiny left palm, ready to start pounding the crap out of his rival.

Suddenly, as if merely saying her name had summoned her, Sarah Kerrigan, ruler of the zerg Swarm, strode into the maw at that very moment. All of the zerg present in the chamber immediately quieted, eyes focused on their queen as she walked into the middle of the semi-circle that her council of… advisors, for lack of a better term, had formed as they were waiting before speaking, her voice echoing with psionic power.

"You all know of our next move from here." This was not meant as a question, but as a statement. Kerrigan knew full well that attempting to defeat an entity such as Amon was a nearly impossible task, even for the might of the zerg Swarm. But even if they did nothing, the xel'naga would still come for them-with the death of his puppet Narud, Amon knew where they were. It was either stand and fight or lie down and die.

Stukov was the first to speak up. "Indeed, Kerrigan. But you have not explained the reason as to why you have summoned us here now. We will all follow you into battle against Amon. You had no need to tell us again."

The Queen of Blades smiled mirthlessly. "I am fully aware, Stukov. What I have summoned you all here for is to inform you of something else-a plan to ensure the continuation of the Swarm." Seeing that she now had her audience's undivided attention, she continued.

"As you know, our chances of standing against Amon, let alone putting him down for good, are slim. Even if we do manage to kill him, the Swarm will most likely die with him. However," she motioned with her left hand, prompting another zerg to enter the chamber, "Abathur has created something to make sure that the zerg do not die with us."

Kerrigan's council was unanimously surprised by the Evolution Master's presence here, outside of the Evolution Chamber-aside from Izsha, none but Kerrigan even knew whether or not he _could_ leave the place. Yet here he was, inching along with surprising speed on a slug-like lower body and clutching an oblong object about the size of a Space Marine's rifle in his spidery hands. Said object was covered in translucent chitin, with a faint orange glow emanating from it and a small creature similar in appearance to a larva suspended in the middle.

Zagara was less than impressed. "... A larva? My Queen, I'm afraid that I do not understand."

"Not exactly, Zagara, but the principle is similar." Kerrigan replied, taking the cocoon-like object from Abathur and holding it in such a way as to let the rest of her advisors see. "This is an entirely new strain of zerg, one that utilizes genetic material from everything from Drones to Infestors to even Cerebrates. I've had Abathur working on this since I emerged from the spawning pool on Zerus."

Abathur then spoke up-if he could show emotions, he would be practically glowing with pride over his work. **"Organism to be placed in drop pod, launched into space towards inhabited world. Lands on surface of world, hatches. Seeks out native with strong psionic energy, infests in same way Overmind infested old Queen of Blades. Organism then mutates into typical Drone, serves infested native to build new zerg hive."**

"So it's a way to quickly create hives on new worlds? Don't normal drop pods do that just as well?" Zagara inquired.

"There's more to the process than that." Kerrigan continued. "Whatever being this infects will retain its personality and free will, similarly to what happened to me on Zerus. It will rule its hive cluster however it sees fit, totally free of my control; essentially, it becomes the leader of an entirely new Swarm."

"You didn't create a weapon…" Stukov muttered, the gears in his head turning.

"I created a successor." She finished. "If the Swarm falls to Amon, this," she gestured towards the cocoon, "will ensure that it does not disappear entirely. To ensure that the infested organism runs its new hive properly, this creature's mind is shared with several other unique zerg essences to serve as advisors-everything from directing evolutions to informing the new leader about the Swarm's purpose."

 _"But where to send this… 'successor' to?"_ Izsha piped up. _"The Dominion worlds may no longer be under the command of Mengsk, but a new zerg hive will not be welcomed there, especially one that does not answer to your call. Protoss genetics are incompatible with that of zerg; their homeworlds are out of the question as well."_

"We aren't sending it to a Dominion or a protoss world, Izsha." Kerrigan replied. "We're going to send it off while in warp space, in order to ensure that Amon won't be able to know where it went if he manages to take control of the Swarm again."

This elicited cries of surprise from her council; Izsha's tendrils hung limp and stiff as boards, Dehaka bellowed and Zagara cried out in shock, and Stukov's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Kerrigan, this is… a dangerous gamble, to put it lightly." Stukov sputtered. "Sending this tiny organism, this 'backup plan' for the entire Swarm, randomly into space without any idea of what direction it will go or where it will end up? Are you sure that this is wise?"

"We are preparing to go to war against a _god_ , Stukov. Any chance we have to ensure survival, no matter how small, is a chance that I'm willing to take." The Queen replied, anger creeping into her voice-a clear warning to the former Terran that her mind was made up. "Abathur! Prepare the drop pod. It's time to send this off."

The Evolution Master nodded, turning around and slithering back into the depths of the Leviathan. Kerrigan turned back to the rest of her council.

"That is all. You are dismissed. Prepare your forces to face Amon-we have a long way to go until we reach him."

Immediately, the assembled zerg disbanded; Izsha drew herself back up into the ceiling, Dehaka lumbered off to wherever it was he lurked on the ship, and Zagara skittered off to continue arming her Queen's forces for war. Only Stukov remained, his glowing eyes regarding Kerrigan closely.

"Are you certain that this is the right choice, Kerrigan? You and I both know that the chances of that creature successfully finding a planet with a native species to infest are extraordinarily low."

"As I have said, those are chances that I'm willing to take, Stukov. The Swarm was created, above all, to survive. I will _not_ let a chance to keep the zerg alive go by and do nothing about it." Kerrigan replied, a ghost of a smile passing across her face momentarily. "Besides, I've never been the type to play it safe."

Stukov chuckled at that. "Fair enough. The path you have chosen is proof enough. I can only hope that this 'backup' will find a strong host."

Kerrigan went silent, psionically viewing Abathur place the tiny zerg into a small drop pod. "I can only hope so, Stukov. I can only hope."

* * *

Several minutes later, the enormous Leviathan jetted forwards with tremendous speed, seemingly disappearing into a flash of blue light as it entered warp space. Cruising through the ether of the alternate dimension at unimaginable speeds, a comparatively tiny fleck soon detached from the rest of the colossal organism, gone almost immediately in a flash of light. Now back in the depths of space, the organism inside the small drop pod reached out psionically, searching for signs of life, quickly locating a planet close by. There was clearly life here, as well as a variety of unique essence. Furthermore, psionic activity clearly showed that the native species was capable of being assimilated into the Swarm. Quickly, the zerg creature attempted to reach out to the rest of the Swarm in order to discern its proximity to the nearest hive world and affirm its location of a planet home to a suitable host species.

It found nothing.

Seemingly surprised by this, the pod edged itself into orbit around the planet's sun, trying to reach the rest of its kind a second time, then a third, a fourth. Each time was the same: not even a single meager larva could be contacted. Its occupant's query answered, the pod continued on its way. There was no Swarm left, but then again, its entire existence was to continue the zerg's legacy should the rest fall. Its mission was all the more important now. It would not fail.

Speeding towards the planet it had detected, the only zerg left in the universe did not pay any mind to the strange, seemingly shattered moon of said planet. Unusual celestial bodies could wait later; it had a host to infest. The skin of the drop pod glowed red with heat as the creature entered the planet's atmosphere. A small forested island soon loomed large in its psionic vision, and the last hope of the Swarm braced itself as the pod slammed into the snowy ground, leveling most of the trees around it. Crawling out of the tattered remains of its vehicle with several dozen caterpillar-like legs, the wormlike zerg reared up like a little cobra and moved its insect-like head from side to side, mentally feeling around for the psionic signals given off by the minds of sapient creatures. It immediately detected thousands of psionic signatures, surprisingly similar to Terran ones, clustered in groups around the coast the island-presumably in towns and cities. The creature ignored these; a population center carried a very high risk of being spotted. It could _not_ afford to take that risk; not with the future of the entire zerg species resting on whatever functioned as shoulders on its armless body. Turning its small head inland, the creature sent out its psionic senses again. This time, it picked up far fewer signals, but nothing too useful yet-

Suddenly, the larva-like creature's psionic senses were overwhelmed by a nearby psionic signature-rather more specifically, the sheer _power_ coming off of it. Whatever this entity was, it was very, very strong-strong enough to rival a Terran ghost in sheer psionic might. Even more fortunately, the signature was quite a distance off from any others of its kind _and_ was quite close to where the Swarm's last hope had landed.

The last of the zerg immediately slithered off through the snowfall towards the signature, its dozens of legs carrying it over any obstacles in its way. It had found the perfect host. It was time to fulfill its purpose.

* * *

 **Alright, it's time to get this show on the road! This story was mainly inspired by the fact that I was disappointed that there were so few good stories on this site about the Swarm, so after a hell of a lot of procrastinating, I decided to make one myself! Hopefully I can live up to the 'good' part of that, heh heh!**

 **I've almost finished the next chapter, but if you have a particular idea or a direction you want me to go for this story, say so in a review! I would really appreciate it! This is GlarnBoudin, signing out!**


	2. Integration

**Chapter 2: Integration**

 _Patch Island, Xiao Long Residence_

* * *

The small house stood at the edge of the forest, a light evening snowfall silently drifting around it. At first glance, it appeared empty: nobody had entered or left it for days now. But at the back of the house, one window was illuminated; the window to the bedroom of the only living being in the building.

Yang Xiao Long stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, depressed. Of course, that wasn't exactly news any longer. After her run-in with Adam Taurus at Beacon Academy and the subsequent loss of her right arm, Yang had totally shut down. She rarely ate or talked, just spending her days lying in bed. The reasons for why she was depressed were many, with one reason taking precedence over the others for a few hours before passing the torch to another, but the current cause for her misery had been leaving the blonde brawler in the dumps for a long, long time.

Five days. Five days had passed since Ruby had left Patch Island with the three surviving members of Team JNPR on the trail of Cinder Falls, leaving nothing behind but a note on her bed and an empty cookie jar. Both her uncle Qrow and her dad had immediately headed out when the latter man had found the note, scouring the entire island for the girl, but they found nothing, no matter how many rocks they upturned or people they questioned; at the moment, they were searching along the coast, checking the ledgers of any transportation off the island for her name. Of course, Yang had been the first one they questioned, but Ruby hadn't told her big sister what she was doing, either. Which was the current reason why Yang was feeling like crap.

Ruby had run off with Team JNPR without even mentioning her plan to Yang, let alone asking if she wanted to come. Growing up, they had told each other _everything_ ; their imaginary friends, their crushes, their deepest fears, secrets, and insecurities. Now, Ruby had gone and headed out on an incredibly dangerous journey that sounded like something out of her beloved stories… and didn't say a word to her sister. And the worst part was, Yang couldn't blame her.

The blonde looked down sadly at the bandaged stump that used to be her right arm. Her Ember Celica had been lost in the carnage when Blake had brought her to the helipad at Beacon; the news had felt like she had lost her limb all over again. Yang had made those gauntlets herself back when she was still in Signal; she rarely ever took them off, even wearing them to bed. Now, she felt almost naked without her beloved weapons, even though it wasn't like she could use them, anyway.

Yang had always been proud of her strength. While almost everyone else in her school used a sword or a gun or something like that to fight, her entire fighting style relied on close-quarters physical combat, punching the crap out of anything in her way. The looks on people's faces when they realized that the blonde beauty was also the muscle of Team RWBY had always put a smile on Yang's face; but now without her arm and, by extension, her dominant hand, she had only a fraction of the combat prowess she once had. The stump on her right side still throbbed sometimes, as if it, too, were mocking her for her reckless decision to leap into combat against Adam without stopping to think.

At that memory, Yang smacked herself with her remaining hand. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ No wonder Ruby hadn't told her older sister about her plan. She was crippled, weaponless, and totally reckless, with no head for subtlety-she'd be a liability even if she still had both arms. Even though she was strong, Yang had heard Ruby's descriptions of Cinder fighting-with those boosted powers, she would kill Yang just as easily as she had killed Pyrrha.

 _And now Ruby's going to die, too._ She thought ruefully before immediately mentally chastising herself for even thinking that, but the damage had already been done. First her mother, than Ruby's mom, than Pyrrha and Penny, now Ruby herself and the rest of Team JNPR: almost everyone she cared about was fading into oblivion. Yang liked to think of herself as an optimist, always trying to look at the bright side of things; but now, life looked very, very _Grimm_.

Yang rolled onto her side, facing away from her opened window. Not even her mental pun could make her feel any better. She was without her weapons, her combat prowess was gone, her teammates had split up across Remnant, several of her friends were dead, and her own sister was running to her death, and there was not a damn thing she could do about it.

 _"But what if there was?"_

A breathy voice, sounding neither masculine nor feminine, echoed in her head, as if the words had been sent directly into her mind rather than verbally spoken. Yang bolted upright, looking around wildly. "Who said that?! Who are you?!"

 _"Down here; on the floor by your window. Do not panic; I am not here to harm you."_

Yang crawled to the edge of her bed, looked down, and immediately drew back with a shout.  
Lying on the floor of her room was a wormlike creature, about two feet long, with a segmented body supported by several dozen caterpillar-like legs. One end, currently facing her, ended in a small, round head, with a pair of sharp mandibles like a beetle's and six small glowing yellow eyes looking directly up at her.

 _Alright, that's it. I've_ definitely _gone crazy. Hallucinating giant worm monsters that can communicate by telepathy? If that isn't crazy, I don't know what is._ Yang thought to herself, hand over her heart in a futile attempt to calm her racing pulse.

 _"I can assure you, Yang Xiao Long, that I am not a figment of your imagination. I am as real as the bed you are sitting on."_ The voice replied, as if it had read her mind, its mention of her full name causing Yang to do a double take.

"How did you-"

 _"I am capable of reading minds to some degree. Your name was easy to find. Anyways, I am most assuredly real, Yang Xiao Long."_

Yang glared at the beast. "Oh, please. Of _course_ you're telling me that you're real-crazy people's hallucinations _always_ say that. Prove that you're real, then!"

 _"Very well."_

As the bug-thing said this, it crawled over to the foot of Yang's bed and clambered up the side almost like a gecko, not stopping until it was perched atop her right knee. _"See? Were I a hallucination, you would not feel my weight upon your leg."_

Sure enough, Yang felt the creature's weight and body heat on her leg through the sheets. Well, so much for being crazy, then-she had never heard of a hallucination that actually had weight.

"Alright, so you _are_ real." She replied, scowling at the intruder. "Now, mind telling me who or what you are and why you broke into my room?!" She asked, her voice rising as she talked and eyes starting to shift in color from lilac to bright red.

 _"You wish for answers, I will provide you with them, Yang Xiao Long. I have no name; I am the only one of my kind, which was also never given a name, although I suppose that the term "Successor" would be most appropriate; and I entered your room to ask something of you-an… exchange of services, if you will."_

Yang's glare intensified. Granted, it had answered her questions, but she still knew nothing about what this mystery being was. But what did she have that would interest a worm; and for that matter, what did it have to offer?  
"What do you mean, 'ask something'?" She asked.  
 _"That… is a long story."_ The 'Successor' replied, its eyes glowing brighter and brighter. A flash of yellow light emanated from the six orbs, and Yang's room disappeared.

* * *

Yang awoke to blackness. She was standing on seemingly thin air in the middle a massive, inky black void. In the distance, a seemingly random array of objects flowed through the air as if they were moving along an invisible current of wind; the rubble of buildings, chunks of earth, even what looked like pieces of enormous Grimm.

"Wha… what is this? Where am I?!" She shouted to the blackness, hoping that someone or something would hear her.

 _"We are in your mind, Yang Xiao Long, as projections of our respective consciousnesses."_ The Successor's voice replied, now seemingly coming from every direction. _"It is the only way I know of to show you the answers to the questions you have asked me, as well as the best way to inform you of my request."_ As the creature spoke, the voidscape began to shift, taking form and color until it became an enormous cityscape, with Yang floating several dozen feet above the scene.

On one side, an army of heavily armored soldiers wielding enormous guns that wouldn't look out of place on military aircraft grouped around a colossal statue in an open plaza. Dozens of small aircraft swooped towards the ground, their shapes twisting and rearranging themselves into humanoid robots, enormous tanks sprouted legs and dug themselves into the ground, and enormous mechs that looked like bigger, bulkier versions of the Paladin units the blonde brawler had faced in the past stood at attention, the cannons mounted on their arms whirring as they prepared to fire. They seemed battle-hardened, as if they had taken the worst the universe could throw at them and came out on top.

Then the _other_ side appeared.

Thousands of insect-like monsters poured into the space, charging down streets, bursting up from the earth, and swooping down from the sky. Clearing the distance between them and the human forces within seconds, they slammed into the opposing forces-less an army and more of a tide of claws and fangs. The monsters washed over the soldiers, tearing them to shreds almost instantly. The opposing army was firing everything they had at the bug creatures-each and every bullet found its mark, every massive blast of energy obliterated hundreds of the monsters, but their weapons were but a candle against a flood. Every insect-creature that was slain was immediately replaced by five more-it was apparent that these futuristic humans were doomed. The colossal mechs fired shot after shot into the horde as their comrades fell, but they, too, soon succumbed under the weight of thousands of monsters as the tide consumed them as well, uncountable numbers of claws and teeth tearing through their armor like it was wet paper.

"I… I don't understand. What are you showing to me?" Yang asked the voice, slightly disturbed by the monstrous creatures. They fought almost like Grimm, but at the same time, the creatures of Grimm could not hold a candle to the ferocity at which these creatures battled, throwing themselves into certain death just to get close enough to deal a death blow to an enemy.

 _"Those, Yang Xiao Long, are the creatures I call kin; the zerg Swarm."_

Yang whirled around in shock to search for the wormlike creature, but saw nothing. "Wait, are you saying that you're one of those things?! Are there _more_ of you out there? Oh Oum, are you here to invade Remnant?!"

The Successor let out a raspy whispering noise that Yang guessed was a sigh before continuing. _"While the creatures you see before you are indeed of the same species as I, this memory is an old one from years past-until recently, the Swarm had a new purpose."_ As it spoke, the bloody scene faded until Yang was now 'standing' in the void she had started out in, a simple stone tabletop floating in front of her with the 'zerg' she had been speaking with sitting atop it. Above and below her, the floating debris that she had seen in the distance earlier was now flowing like waterless rivers.

 _"My kind were created millennia ago by a godlike being called Amon, who sought to use us as the tools to extinguish all life in the universe and remake it in his own image. We rebelled against our creator, led by an entity called the Overmind until its death. A human that the Overmind had transformed and altered into a zerg weapon then proceeded to take control of the Swarm, taking the name of the Queen of Blades."_

As the Successor spoke, shadowy silhouettes appeared on the table in front of it, acting out the events that it described. A vaguely defined humanoid raised its arm, and thousands of tiny insect-like creatures emerged from the surface of the table before turning on their summoner, causing the creature to vanish into mist. Next, a giant eyeball shape stood before what looked like a human woman, tentacles grabbing hold and wrapping around her. As the woman writhed in pain, chitin wrapped around her body like living skintight armor, and enormous fleshless wings burst from her shoulders.

 _"After being freed from the Overmind's control, My Queen used the Swarm's power to take vengeance for the many pains she had wrought, to free the human she loved, to topple the tyrant who had betrayed her. She then gathered the zerg to hunt down Amon and ensure that his plans would never come to fruition, but not before creating me to ensure that the Swarm would still live should she fail. Judging from the fact that I could not sense any zerg at all when I arrived on this planet, I believe that she-and the rest of the Swarm-died in battle against Amon; most likely taking him down with them, judging from the fact that the universe still harbors life."_ The eyeball-monster soon dissipated into smoke, and the winged woman was soon surrounded by zerg. She pointed towards what looked like an enormous castle, the creatures immediately slamming their bodies into the walls, tearing it down. The woman then raised her arms, disappearing into mist before being replaced by a giant floating creature that looked like an insect bloated with air like a blimp. The floating beast then started to fly towards a glowing orb that appeared at the center of the table, as more and more of its kind appeared alongside it.

Yang's gaze hardened as she mulled this over before asking her next question. "You said that you were created to ensure the Swarm's survival. How are you supposed to do that, and what does that have to do with me?"

 _"That is what I wished to ask of you, Yang Xiao Long. You see, my purpose was to land on a planet far away from any forces that know of my species' existence and to bring a native of said planet into the fold, in the same fashion that My Queen was brought into the Swarm. That native… would be you."_

Yang's jaw hung open. "Wait, are you serious? You want to… I don't know, inject eggs into me or something and convert me to your Swarm?! No way, buddy!" As she shouted, hundreds of floating balls of flame as large as her head blinked into existence around the pair, slowly circling the table but quickly picking up speed.

 _"The process would not be fatal to you and would leave you with your personality and free will intact-that is more than what My Queen was left with when she was… converted."_  
"No, no, and no. There is no way I'm letting you turn me into one of your kind! I don't even know what's in it for me in this 'deal' of yours!"

 _"How about the means to get revenge on the ones who wronged you?"_

 _That_ quickly got Yang's attention. "What do you mean by that?" She slowly asked, narrowing her eyes at the zerg.

 _"It means exactly what you think it means: join the Swarm, and you will achieve power beyond your wildest dreams._

 _We know of your pain, Yang Xiao Long; we know of the injustices wrought onto you. You were broken, betrayed. You wish to right the injustices wrought upon your family, your nation, and your friends, but you are unable to take a stand, crippled by your enemy and left behind in the dust by your own teammates; by those you called your friends; by your own **sister**. Humanity has failed you, Yang Xiao Long. We will not. Accept our offer, and we will grant you the power to fight back against those who wronged you, the power to attain the revenge you so crave, the power to become the strongest in the world-but at the cost of who you are. What is your choice? Accept and lead the Swarm, or decline and forever lie in bed, left behind and forgotten by those who were once your friends while the world crumbles around you?"_

Yang said nothing, floating in the swirling tumult of her mind as the fires spinning around her fizzled out. She opened her mouth to refuse again, but stopped herself. She remembered being duped into getting disqualified from the Tournament, Pyrrha being manipulated into killing Penny, the havoc that had been wrought in Vale by Cinder's forces. She looked down, flinching a bit at the memory of Adam standing over Blake's nearly unconscious body and her subsequent loss of her right arm. Her gaze hardened as her mind went over the most recent memories-Ruby's account of Pyrrha's death and promptly leaving Yang behind on a mission to avenge their fallen friends; a mission that she would most likely not return from.

She grinned humorlessly to herself. Stuck between making a deal with a psychic caterpillar demon or lying down and waiting to die alone-life had a funny way of screwing her over at every turn. Still, though, the creature's words rang painfully true. Once again, Yang was powerless; powerless to fight back against her enemies, powerless to save her friends, and powerless to do anything as yet another loved one left her forever.

 _No. Not anymore_. Yang Xiao Long was many things, but a quitter was not one of them. While she had been lying in bed feeling sorry for herself, the scumbags who had done this to her and her friends were running amok. Now, though, she had the means to make them _pay_. Taurus had taken her arm, but that was only going to make the look on his face that much more satisfying when she gave him the ass-kicking he so richly deserved. The White Fang dared to let monsters loose in her city? She would show them what _real_ monsters looked like.

She 'turned' to look the creature in its many eyes. The Successor had patiently waited for her as she had mulled everything over, and was now looking at her expectantly as she uttered the only two words she needed to say.

"I'm in."

 _"Then let us return to the real world and fulfill my purpose."_

With that, the creature's eyes flashed yellow again, and Yang suddenly found herself sitting in bed in the exact same position she had been in before her telepathic exchange with the Successor, which was still sitting on her leg.

"How… how long did that take?!" Yang asked incredulously. A glance at her window confirmed that the sun was still high in the sky-in the same place as it was when the zerg had first reached out to her.

 _"Only a few seconds have passed since we conversed within your subconsciousness. Now, I must explain to you what happens next. After your… conversion, I will transform into a Drone, the most basic strain of zerg, losing my sapience and psionic abilities in the process and serving you to the best of my ability. As the Swarm grows, more advisors will be born to assist you. Did you get all that?"_ It asked, receiving a confirming nod from Yang.

"Got it. Let's do this already."

 _"Then it is time to welcome you into the fold, Yang Xiao Long."_

As the creature 'spoke,' it opened its mandibles wide. A long, thin tongue tipped with a sharp needle-like spine darted out, jabbing Yang in her forearm and pumping some kind of chemical into her before darting back into its mouth.

It felt like she had been injected with liquid fire, quickly spreading from the injection site to all around her body, leaving her entire body in agony. Yang bit her tongue, but she still let out a yell of pain despite herself when the burning sensation reached her head and face, seeping behind her eyeballs, into her ears, under her tongue. Then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. The scalding pain was extinguished, only to be immediately replaced with frigid numbness.

Yang swayed a little, reeling from the sudden pain, before falling backwards onto her pillow, unconsciousness taking her. As she fell, the last of the zerg uttered its last message to her before crawling back out the window and into the forest.

 _"Welcome to the Swarm… My Queen."_

* * *

 **Second chapter is up! Alright, this is quite a bit longer than the first one, and it heads right into the main plot point of the story; Yang gets infected by the Zerg and becomes its new queen.**

 **To me, Yang and Kerrigan had always seemed to be really similar to one another in personality; they're both absolute powerhouses, Yang with sheer physical might and Kerrigan with her psionics, both are straightforwards and more than a little headstrong, and they both got _royally_ screwed over-Kerrigan was betrayed by Mengsk and left to die, while Yang was cheated out of the tournament, got her arm chopped off, and was promptly left in the dust by her own younger sister, totally broken.**

 **Honestly, that last one is one of the big things that made me want to write this story in the first place; it was originally going to take place sometime between the earlier seasons, with all of Team RWBY getting zergified-hell, I might write a spinoff where I do just that-but after Season 3, I scrapped the entire plot and started fresh. I wanted to help my favorite character in the series; to give her a chance to get back up on her feet; to grant her _revenge_.**

 **The next chapter will take longer to upload, but it will see the first zerg hive in Remnant's history up and running.**

 **Thanks to everyone who reviewed this story already; you've warmed my rotten ooze-dripping heart! 5 Coloured Walker in particular had a pretty solid question, which I will gladly answer-while Kerrigan is definitely capable of commanding zerg telepathically, in the campaign for Heart of the Swarm, she always talks with her advisors face to face, without any kind of psionic communication, so I figured that the same would apply here.**

 **Leave a review; you know you want to! I really appreciate it! This is GlarnBoudin, signing out!**


	3. Establishment

**Chapter 3: Establishment**

 **Note: This chapter contains quite a bit of gore. If you're squeamish about that sort of thing, then frankly, I'm impressed that you still chose to give this story a read. However, you just might want to skip this if you're faint of heart.**

 **Also, forgot to say this already:**

 **Starcraft is the rightful intellectual property of Blizzard Entertainment, and RWBY is the property of Rooster Teeth.**

 **Now, on to the story!**

* * *

 _Some Time Later…_

Yang awoke with a start, her heart racing. What in the name of Oum was _that_? Some crazy dream about a psychic worm monster that had claimed that it wasn't a hallucination and making a deal with it to control a swarm of giant monster-bugs from outer space? Wow, she really _was_ going crazy at this rate.

As she rubbed her eyes with her remaining hand to clear the sleep out of them, however, Yang immediately noticed something odd. She was not a morning person, practically a zombie when she woke up and taking a few hours or so (or a couple cups of coffee; no wonder Ozpin and Oobleck were always sipping the stuff, although how the former man wasn't bouncing off the walls like the latter remained a mystery to the blonde firebrand, and probably always would) to not get the irresistible urge to strangle anyone who had the audacity to suggest that it was a 'good' morning. Now, though, she felt much more alert, more energized than she had any right to be at this hour, like she could go out and run laps all day.

 _OK, something is seriously wrong here._ Yang thought as she sat up. _Why do I feel, well,_ awake? She should be barely able to open her eyes right now! Maybe that vivid dream had had some reality to it after all…

Yang snorted a bit-the first time she had laughed in weeks. _Yeah, right. The last member of a race of psychic alien murder-bugs just so_ happens _to land on Patch, close by to my house, and picks_ me _, of all people, to rebuild its entire species. That sounds like something straight out of a bad fanfiction, for Oum's sake._ She grumbled to herself. Still, the blonde brawler was unsure; the dream had felt extremely real. The burning agony permeating throughout her entire body that was the conversion process and the feeling of the Successor's weight on her leg were still fresh in her mind, more so than any other dream she had had over the years. (Even that particularly strange one where she had killed another punch-happy girl in a bar... what had her name been, Tina or Tiffany or something?)

Ah, what the hell. Might as well try it-it wasn't like she had anything to lose from this. Yang squeezed her eyes shut and placed her index and middle finger to her left temple like a telepath in a Saturday morning cartoon, sending out her mental summons to the creature-it had said that it had turned into something called a Drone, didn't it?

 _Uh, hello? Anybody out there? Drone, answer me. Your leader, the new queen of the Swarm, has need of you._

She waited for a couple seconds for something, _anything_ to reply, but nothing did. Yang sighed to herself in dismay, flopping back down onto her bed. So much for the power to get revenge, then.

And then, something replied.

 _"What is your bidding, My Queen?"_

Yang jumped a little bit at the voice and bolted back upright again, her head swiveling from side to side to locate the source of this new voice. She would find nothing; w hatever the mysterious speaker was, it wasn't too close by, and it had echoed in her mind just like the Successor's had.

This voice, however was quite different from that of the creature that had first contacted her. While the Successor's voice was smooth and whispery, almost seductive, this one was gravelly and several octaves lower. Its tone was blunt and mechanical, while the Successor's was soft and suave. And, of course, the Successor hadn't _obeyed her freaking orders._

"Alright, who or _what_ the hell is talking to me in my head now?" Yang shouted to the empty air, her remaining hand balled into a fist.

 _"I am a Drone, My Queen; a simple worker bred to build and gather materials. You called for me, and so I respond. What is your command, My Queen?"_

Well, that answered that question, she supposed. But there was still one more thing to know...

"How am I supposed to command you when I don't even know where you are?" Yang replied, her voice somewhat calmer now and her hand returning to her temple.

 _"I am approximately half a kilometer northeast from your current location, My Queen."_ The Drone replied. _"Close by the wreckage of the drop pod that brought the Successor here. It is not a long journey; you should be able to arrive in approximately two minutes and thirty-six seconds with your new capabilities."_

"Hang on a minute, what 'new capabilities'? Am I going to start growing wings or something now?!" Yang asked. She remembered the shadowy form of the Queen of Blades; while her skeletal draconic wings _did_ look undeniably cool, they would probably just get in the blonde brawler's way.

 _"The Successor's mutagen was incapable of causing any extreme changes to your physiology, My Queen; too much initial modification would have destroyed your mental capacities and left you a mindless husk. As such, it merely connected you to the zerg hive mind and worked to optimize as much of your anatomy as it could; among such optimizations were increased endurance and speed."_

Hmm. So the Successor had kept its word that it would make her stronger, after all. The only question now was…

"Approximately how long was I out, Drone?" Yang inquired. "And what have you been doing while I was being... converted?"

 _"You have been unconscious for approximately 18 hours since your indoctrination into the Swarm, My Queen. While you were out, I have been cannibalizing the remains of the drop pod; the biomass contained within it is just enough to construct a Hatchery."_

"Wait, wait, wait, slow down a minute. Biomass? A Hatchery? What are you talking about?" Yang asked; the information dump was already going a bit too quickly for her liking.

 _"As your former species builds with wood and stone, the Swarm builds with flesh and chitin, My Queen. Drones consume organic material and use it as raw materials to metamorphose ourselves into structures. Hatcheries are the backbone of a zerg hive; they are sites of production for larvae, which all zerg organisms develop from. Each creature requires a certain amount of biomass to mutate it from a larva; unfortunately, there simply isn't enough leftover biomass in this drop pod to allow for anything besides the construction of a Hatchery."_

"Alright, I'm heading to your location now. Is there any way that I can locate you?"

 _"You should be able to feel my presence lingering in the back of your mind, My Queen. Focus on it, and you'll be able to follow it to my location. Oh, and My Queen?"_

"Yes?"

 _"Those strange gestures are unnecessary for communicating with me. You do not need to keep your hand to the side of your head like that."_

Yang's hand dropped back to her side embarrassedly-she had had her index and middle fingers on her left temple for the entire exchange. "Uh, thank you. You are dismissed." She turned to the edge of her bed, preparing to swing her legs down onto to the ground, when the reality of the situation finally came down upon her harder than Nora's makeshift melon-hammer had during that food fight so many months ago.

She was no longer a human being anymore-she had just willingly signed away her humanity in a deal with an alien monster to become another of its kind. What's more, the Drone had called her its _queen_. She was freaking _royalty!_ Growing up, Yang and Ruby had never been too interested in being princesses or anything of the sort, but now, the blonde powerhouse was giddy at the very thought of it. And why wouldn't she be? She was now the monarch of a species of extraterrestrial killing machines that combined the savagery and numbers of the Grimm with organic equivalents to technology beyond anything that Atlas' military scientists had ever come up with. Weiss would be practically _glowing_ with jealousy right now if she knew; well, that or faint the second she saw the Successor. Yang chuckled again at that, but her expression quickly sobered as another realization came down upon her. What would people think when they learned about this? To the rest of Remnant, she was already a dangerous individual, thanks to the fiasco at the Tournament; the Swarm would only hammer that image home. She could be arrested for amassing an army; dissected and experimented on to see how her new anatomy worked; or worst of all, hunted down like a Grimm, seen as just another monster to be tracked down and killed.

The blonde brawler smiled darkly at that. Like anyone would be able to stand against her for long. The memory of the Swarm tearing into the human forces like wolves among lambs was proof enough of what the zerg could do. If the world saw Yang and the-no, _her_ Swarm-as monsters, well,then she would show them just what her monsters could do.

Her mind made up, Yang rose from her bed and stood up for the first time in months, only to immediately grab the side of her bed to steady herself as her legs wobbled and threatened to give out underneath her, her long period of lethargy having weakened them slightly. After a few experimental steps forwards to acclimatize herself with solid ground again, Yang quickly got dressed in her regular attire-well, as quickly as she could with just one arm-and headed out the front door. Standing on the front porch, she closed her eyes and tried to zero in on the location of the Drone- _her_ Drone. Sure enough, she could feel its presence in the back of her mind after a couple seconds of searching; far back enough that she wouldn't notice it when not actively thinking about it, but still easy to quickly access when she needed it.

Focusing on the Drone's mental presence, Yang concentrated, mentally reaching out and grasping hold of it, and… there! She couldn't really explain it, but every instinct in her body pointed her to the northeast, into the forest. Relaxing her mental grip, the blonde brawler took off at a run into the treeline, ignoring the light snowfall around her. It was time to meet with her new subject.

* * *

Several minutes later, the new queen of the Swarm arrived at the edge of a large clearing, strangely not out of breath from the constant sprint she had been travelling at or feeling the chill of the snowy wind whipping around her. Chalking up her lack of fatigue and newfound cold resistance to the zerg genetics now flowing through her veins, Yang stepped out of the leafless woods and into the clearing.

The space was quite a large one; big enough to safely land a midsize aircraft, although Yang guessed that, judging from the dozen or so fallen trees dotting the clearing, it used to be quite a bit smaller. In the center of the clearing was a large crater, with a few tattered remains of what must have been the Successor's 'drop pod,' as the Drone had called it, lying in the center. What it once looked like, Yang couldn't tell; anything that could have provided a guess as to its original shape had been consumed by the creature that was also in the crater and in the process of finishing up the last scraps.

 _That must be the Drone, then,_ Yang thought to herself as she looked at the dining creature-her psychic lead pointed her towards it as if a flashing billboard floated above its insect-like head.

About six feet long, the creature looked quite a bit like the Successor in general shape, at least due to the fact that both zerg had segmented worm-like bodies, but the resemblance ended there. Four segmented legs grew on each side of the Drone's body, connected by a membrane of skin that continued past the last pair of legs to about a quarter of the way down the tail, forming a pair of slowly beating wings that kept the zerg aloft a foot or so above the ground. A pair of lobster-like pincers were situated at the front of the body, flanking the head; similar in shape to that of a Deathstalker, minus the bony armor plates, the face sported six bright yellow slit-pupiled eyes, with a horizontally-aligned set of jaws, armed with several dozen small sharp teeth, sitting between a small pair of mandibles. Said mouth and mandibles were currently busy tearing up the chunks of drop pod as the pincers tore apart larger chunks and brought them up to the face, shredding them into a fine paste before swallowing the now-pulverized material.

Yang looked on at the slightly disturbing display, but felt no trace of fear or disgust: the Drone's eating habits were messy, but the zerg creature had _nothing_ on Ruby when she had gotten the scent of a plate of fresh cookies. Besides, the creature had obeyed her orders beforehand without question-no use in fearing something that was willing to do what she wanted.

"All right, Drone, what's the situation? How much biomass do we have?" She asked, striding up to the lip of the crater as the Drone finished chewing up the last of the drop pod.

 _"The drop pod contained approximately enough raw materials to construct a Hatchery, but not enough for anything else, My Queen."_ The Drone replied, turning to face her as its gravelly voice resonated in her mind. _"Suggested actions: Consume additional biomass until resources are sufficient to produce one or more additional Drones. More assistance is required for attaining additional biomass; this world is lacking in the materials found on all other planets the zerg have colonized."_

"Wait, what kind of 'materials?'" Yang asked, more than a little worry evident in her voice. Did the zerg need some kind of alien metal alloy to even reproduce? What if they could only eat some kind of unique chemical compound and her Drone was going to slowly starve to death?!

 _"On almost all other worlds that the Swarm has visited, two materials were extremely common; a light green gas known as vespene and a light blue crystal stronger than most metals. I can assure you, My Queen, that zerg do not need these materials to create more of us,"_ it added, sensing its queen's distress, _"They were simply extremely laden with energy, making them extremely efficient sources of biomass. Without such materials, biomass acquisition will be a slow process."_

Alright, that wasn't so bad; the news that the absence of these space minerals wouldn't spell doom for the Swarm was a relief to the firestarter. However, this lack of biomass was still a significant setback: it was midwinter on Patch, and the vegetation of the forest had withered away months ago, while almost all of the animals had either gone into hibernation or migrated to warmer climes. It would be very difficult to scrounge up enough organic matter just to produce another Drone, let alone an entire army.

Yang spent several minutes lost in thought while the Drone glided out of the crater and started gnawing through the bark of the nearest felled tree, her eyes wandering in the direction of a nearby town and resting on the windows in the distant houses, lit by Dust crystal-powered lights.

 _Wait a minute; that's it!_ Remnant may not have vespene gas or space diamonds, but it _did_ have something close-Dust crystals! Weiss' many lectures on the colorful minerals had been practically engraved into Yang's brain by this point, but her constant mentions of the raw power that they contained were now practically echoing in the blonde's mind.

Snapping out of her trance, the blonde brawler turned back towards her Drone, which had been making significant progress on the dead tree while she was thinking.

"Keep working on these dead trees; I think that there just might be a resource here that can work as a replacement for that stuff."

 _"As you wish, My Queen."_

Yang gave the Drone a nod, then turned and dashed back to her house; like almost every household on Remnant, her family had a good-sized cache of Dust crystals on hand for use as ammo in case of Grimm attack and a backup power supply. Ruby had swiped a large portion of those crystals before going off on her quest, but her dad had restocked since then. Unlike her sister, however, the blonde firebrand didn't need a large amount of Dust-just four or five crystals would be more than enough to test whether or not they were a usable resource. Heading directly for the kitchen, Yang opened the cabinet under the sink, taking a single crystal of each primary color; red, blue, green, and yellow. She didn't bother with taking any more; too much missing Dust would raise suspicions from Uncle Qrow and her father, and she could _not_ risk them finding out about her new insectoid minion.

After carefully placing the volatile minerals in a knapsack-there was no way she could carry all of them with one arm-Yang returned to the clearing as quickly as she could, only feeling slightly winded when she arrived; by then, the Drone had broken down about half of the tree it had been gnawing away at when she had left, small splinters on the ground being the only sign of the tree's previous size. As it heard its queen's footsteps on the ground, it stopped and turned towards her as she approached, watching closely as she gingerly placed the four crystals on the snowy ground in front of it, explaining what the strange new objects were as she did so.

"Here; these are Dust crystals, a resource found on this planet. I don't know how well they stack up to those materials you were talking about, but they're _packed_ with raw elemental energy; red crystals contain fire energy, yellow ones are earth, green is air, and blue is water. Almost every piece of tech we have here runs on this stuff, but be careful when you eat it, it's got quite the kick-my sister once blew up a crateful of the stuff just by _sneezing_ on it _."_

Nodding once to convey its understanding, the Drone glided over to the Dust crystals, picking up an oblong green air crystal with one of its pincers and scrutinizing it momentarily before biting off the tip, its powerful jaws easily grinding the gem fragment into powder. The minute it swallowed the fine dust, the zerg's eyes seemed to brighten like miniature suns for a few seconds as the raw, untapped primordial energy surged through its hovering body, almost causing it to drop the crystal in its claws.

 _"My… My Queen, this 'Dust'… it's incredible. The energy contained within this single crystal… it is several times greater than a similar amount of the resources I spoke of!"_ So great was the zerg's surprise at this that it actually dropped its monotone for a minute for an awed tone, as if it were speaking before a god, before composing itself again. _"Ahem… anyway, My Queen, these crystals are more than sufficient sources of biomass. With them, we will undoubtedly have more than enough biomass to not only create a Hatchery and several more Drones, but a Spawning Pool as well."_

"A what now?" Yang asked. Didn't the zerg say that they just needed a Hatchery to start making Drones?

 _"A Spawning Pool, My Queen; another zerg structure, necessary for converting larvae into Zerglings, the mainstay of the Swarm's forces."_ The Drone clarified, sensing its mistress' confusion.

"Ah, alright. Finish up the rest of those crystals, then, and create a Hatchery."

Its orders given, the zerg turned to the rest of the energy-rich stones, quickly crushing the gems between its shearing jaws and the latent energy within them rushing through its body. After consuming the Dust crystals, the Drone then descended to the center of the crater, folding up its webbed legs and touching down on the ground, ready to begin its transformation.

The zerg's jointed carapaced cracked open along the spine, revealing pulsating bright orange flesh that immediately began to rise, expanding like a balloon being filled with a swarm of flies. Farther and farther outwards the churning mass expanded, soon filling the entire crater with a pulsing bright orange dome as if an enormous pimple had sprouted on the face of the world. It stretched taller and taller until it was the size of a small house, then suddenly halted its advance. As Yang watched, the surface smoothed out, solidifying and taking on a plasticy sheen, while an enormous dark object, jagged and mountainous, began to take shape underneath the skin from the dark outline of the Drone's original body.

Suddenly, the dome's skin began to creak; viscous amber fluids began to leak from hairline fractures, and the shape began to scrape the top of its prison. Then, the thing _burst_ like the colossal pimple it bore such a close resemblance to, painting everything within a 15-foot radius with orange amniotic slime; Yang just barely managed to jump backwards out of the way to avoid the impromptu shower. Any feelings of disgust were immediately forgotten, however, the blonde brawler's mouth hanging open at the sight of the structure that had pushed its way out of her Drone's body.

The Hatchery was shaped vaguely like the pyramids she had seen pictures of in books about Vacuo, but it was composed of rough black-and-purple flesh instead of smooth sandstone bricks. A ribbed tube-like structure, almost like an organic covered slide, ran down each of the four edges, ending in a circular mouth-like hole at ground level wide enough to accommodate an Alpha Beowulf, while five enormous bony spires, one in the middle of the base of each side, reached skywards before curling inwards towards the center like enormous claws. Finally, at the very top of the structure sat a circular maw, ringed with mandibles that looked like smaller versions of the giant spires and equipped with dozens of long, curved fangs.

 _Alright, it's official. I have the coolest minions ever_.

As Yang looked on, greyish-black slime oozed out of the mouths of the tubes, coating the ground around it and spreading like a liquid, soon covering all of the ground within a 45-foot radius around the zerg building. As it oozed under her feet, Yang noted that the tainted ground didn't really feel slimy at all; it just felt a good bit softer and springier than the frozen soil she had been standing on mere seconds before. Furthermore, as she walked towards the Hatchery, the slime seemed to actively assist her movements, bunching up underneath her foot and pushing it forwards each time she took a step.

 _It recognizes me as its Queen,_ she thought to herself, the boost provided by the zerg-tainted ground propelling her to the organic structure noticeably quicker than she would have gone otherwise. As she crouched down and peeked into one of the still-trickling holes, a flicker of movement suddenly caught her eye, and she felt a new presence suddenly insert itself into the Swarm's hive mind.

A worm-like creature, about as long as her forearm, half-slithered and half-slid out of the tunnel, only stopping when it bumped into the side of Yang's foot and fell over onto its back. Hundreds of tiny caterpillar-like legs flailed at the air frantically in a vain attempt to right the creature, while a long thin tail whipped around and the insect-like mandibles on the head, which looked a little too big for its body, snapped at the empty air, while little yellow eyes glared at the offending foot that had dared to knock it over.

Yang giggled a bit at the ridiculous sight; this must be the larva the Drone had mentioned before. Reaching out towards it, she gently righted the little zerg with her hand, petting its insect-like head as she did so. Knowing that the being standing before it was its queen, the larva scuttled/slithered closer to her, looking up expectantly for her command.

Standing back up, the firestarter looked down at her subject, her face becoming serious once again. "Alright, larva, welcome to the Swarm. Your orders? Mature into a Drone, after you're finished, start breaking down those fallen trees around the clearing."

Immediately, the larva slithered off a little ways from the Hatchery before standing stock-still and curling itself up into a ball. The zerg-slime underneath it quickly rose up around it, wrapping it up in an egg-shaped cocoon that quickly shifted color to a toxic green, with spiny struts emerging to hold it steady. The cocoon immediately began to grow in size, pulsing as the seconds passed until it was about the size of its new ruler before stopping. As Yang watched, she felt several more presences enter the hive mind; four more larvae were sliding out of the Hatchery. An idea suddenly struck her; reaching into the hive mind an grasping hold of the worm-like zerg's consciousnesses, she issued a single one-word mental command to the little creatures; it was all she needed for this test.

 _Come._

Immediately, the blonde brawler heard the tell-tale slithering-skittering of the four larvae. With surprising speed for their size, they gathered around her, one or two rubbing their small heads against her ankles. With a grin, Yang sat down on the slimy earth-it was much more solid than she expected, almost like sitting on hard rubber-and gathered up the small creatures into her lap like she did with Zwei sometimes-Qrow and Taiyang had taken the dog along with them, hoping that he would be able to pick up Ruby's scent. Stroking all four of the creatures, she quietly whispered praises to them for their obedience, similarly to how she and Ruby had done with the corgi when he was a puppy. The larvae seemed to appreciate this praise, rubbing up against her legs like serpentine many-legged cats. Despite their wormlike appearances and wickedly sharp-looking mandibles, the creatures' presence was comforting to Yang; after months of solitude, the presence of creatures that actively showed affection towards her did wonders at helping her out of her still somewhat depressed state.

After a few minutes of much-needed cuddling, Yang stood up again to address the quartet. No more larvae had been 'birthed' from the Hatchery while she had been playing, no doubt due to a lack of enough biomass to produce them.

Instead of verbally communicating, however, the blonde once again tapped into the hive mind to give the newly-born creatures their orders, issuing her commands telepathically.

 _Three of you, mutate into Drones. One of your siblings is currently transforming already; when you finish, three of you are to set yourself to the same task as it. The last one, stand by and wait for further instruction._

Immediately, the larvae scuttled off and became encased in the zerg-slime, beginning the process of pupating into mature Drones. As the support spines rose around the last one's cocoon, a cracking sound, almost like that of an eggshell breaking, reached Yang's ears. The first Drone had finished mutating, and was now halfway out of its cocoon. Hauling itself out with its pincers as if it were some kind of insectoid seal, the zerg shook off the slime from its wet leg-wings and took to the air, hovering just above the surface of the ground for a couple of seconds before gliding over to the half-eaten tree that Yang's first Drone had been eating while she had been gathering Dust crystals, resuming its predecessor's task. After a few minutes, it was joined by three more, their combined effort soon reducing the tree to splinters. The four zerg then glided back to the Hatchery, regurgitating the chewed-up wood pulp into the organic buildings' mouth-holes before heading towards another downed tree to repeat the process. As Yang watched, muscles like conveyor belts immediately began ferrying the chewed wood mess upwards, towards the central mouth at the top.

She now turned to the last Drone and gave it its first and final orders-verbally this time.

"You, mutate into a Spawning Pool in the area that your siblings opened up."

The zerg clicked its mandibles in understanding, gliding over to the spot and laying itself down on the ground, its armor splitting just like that of the Drone that had produced the Hatchery. The great cyst-like structure was somewhat shorter this time, only about 15 feet tall, and the Spawning Pool that burst out of it after a few minutes was radically different in structure from the Hatchery.

The Spawning Pool was a huge pool of bright green liquid raised to about the same height as Yang's waist, the rim ringed with sharp upwards-pointing fangs. Taking up about half as much space as the Hatchery, the grey-black slime began to spread again, covering all of the ground in a 15-foot radius around the Spawning Pool that was not yet caked in the goo. When Yang poked her index finger into the pool's 'water' experimentally, she noticed that it was actually quite warm.

The zerg-infested blonde turned back to the Drones; it and its brethren had returned to the Hatchery to regurgitate the remains of the second dead tree into it. As they did so, four larvae slid out of the mouth-like openings, slithering around the structure that had birthed them.

"You there, how much biomass do we have at the moment?" She asked a passing Drone.

 _"Enough to spawn six or seven Zerglings, but an Overlord will be required before we can create any more than three, My Queen."_

"An Overlord? I thought that I was your leader."

 _"You are, My Queen, but you can only hold so many zerg under your control-you are only one organism, after all. Overlords serve to strengthen the entire hive mind, allowing more zerg to be brought into the fold. Without them, any additional zerg you create will be crazed and feral, killing everything around them before dying."_

"Alright, so if I make any more zerg without ths Overlord, they won't be under my control and go to town on everything around them. Got it. I want a larva mutated into an Overlord immediately or as soon as we have enough biomass, whichever comes first. As soon as that's done, have the rest mutate into Zerglings. We'll need defenses of some sort in case Grimm start attacking. I'm going to help you guys gather additional biomass."

 _"Understood, My Queen. It would most unfavorable to suffer an attack by the local fauna before we have adequate defenses."_ The zerg replied. As it turned to the half-destroyed tree, followed by its queen, a larva cocooned itself and began the mutation process, while the remaining three slithered to the Spawning Pool, scrabbling up the walls with their dozens of tiny feet and sliding into the greenish contents, cocooning themselves as soon as they submerged.

With Yang helping out, the gathering of biomass became much quicker; the Drones used their pincers to cut the dead trees into smaller pieces, which the blonde then carried over to the Hatchery in between dragging over several more fallen trees from farther away. Despite only having one arm, the newly infested human could easily bear the same amount of materials as two or three Drones, but she began to falter after about 15 minutes-going for several months without regular meals had taken its toll. As she dumped her pile of wood chunks into the Hatchery, one of her Drones glided over to her.

 _"My Queen, your assistance is most useful-we now have enough biomass to mutate almost two dozen Zerglings. However, you need to eat something-you appear to be suffering from malnutrition, and seem to have been for almost two weeks now. The Successor's mutagen may have kept you operating for a while, but you most consume_ something _soon."_

"Don't worry about me, Drone, I'm fine. As soon as the Overlord and those Zerglings hatch, I'll send them out to search for something edible." Yang brushed off the zerg's inquiry-she didn't have the time to grab something to eat now. As long as her hive was unprotected, they were still at risk from a Grimm attack; her well-being could wait until the zerg had adequate protection. "Also, have the rest of the larvae turn into Zerglings as well." While she and her Drones had been pulverizing trees, six more larvae had been born-they were now all right on Yang's heels, following her around like ducklings around their mother until she got too far away from the Hatchery, at which point they retreated back into the organic structure.

Before the Drone could answer her, the sound of cocoons cracking filled the air; the four larvae from earlier had begun to hatch.

* * *

The Overlord was the first to break free from its cocoon, which had grown large enough to comfortably hold an Ursa Major. An enormous body shaped like the abdomen of a spider was held up by two enormous balloon-like sacs of lighter-than-air gases growing from the sides of its body, with two rows of dagger-like spines running down the back and dozens of segmented tendrils dangling underneath. A pair of large dangling pincers like those of a Drone flanked the creature's tiny spider-like head, which was armed with a pair of short stubby mandibles. The bulbous creature slowly rose into the air until it was comfortably hovering about 50 feet above the Hatchery, impassively observing the clearing below. Yang gazed in awe at the giant zerg organism for only a couple of moments before dashing over to the Spawning Pool to observe the hatching of her first soldiers.

The three Zerglings were just beginning to push their way out of their cocoons as the blonde brawler ran up-just as she arrived on the scene, a scythe-like limb burst its way out of its shell, tearing a considerable hole in it before the entire creature pulled itself out, covered in the fluids of the Spawning Pool.

The Zergling looked like a lizard the size of a Great Dane at first glance, but its legs were held directly underneath the body, with its two-toed dinosaur-like hind legs being larger and stronger than the three-clawed forelimbs, which were held off the ground in a bipedal position when it stood still. The body was covered in chitin plates, with tough leathery hide covering what parts of the body not protected by the armor plating, while the tail was armed with short, sharp spikes along the sides with a single spike on the very tip, and two insectlike wings grew from just above each hip, standing upright instead of being folded down vertically. A pair of insectoid limbs tipped with scythe-like claws sprouted from where the wings would be on a Griffon and arched over the creature's lizard-like head, which sported a short muzzle filled with sharklike teeth and a pair of inwards-curving horns where the mandibles would be on an insect-as Yang watched, the horns slowly opened and closed, causing her to realize that they actually _were_ mandibles. Slit-pupiled eyes glowed yellow as the monstrous creature stared directly at Yang, leaping out of the Spawning Pool to stand before her, soon being followed by another Zergling as both hunkered down to the ground in a gesture of submission. The third, however, still struggled to get out of its cocoon, snarling in vain as it flailed at the unrelenting confines of its shell.

As soon as the sound of the creature's thrashing reached Yang's ears, she leapt into action. Vaulting herself into the Spawning Pool with her remaining arm, she waded through the knee-deep slime, quickly coming to stand in front of the cocoon. Slamming her fist into the plastic-like material, she opened up a decent-sized hole in the chrysalis, prompting the Zergling inside to poke its head and a foreclaw out of the chrysalis. Yang placed a hand on the creature's head, cooing words of encouragement to it.

"Come on, little guy. Push; you can do it. Push."

Seemingly given strength by its queen's words, the Zergling, which Yang noticed was a bit smaller than its brethren at about the size of a wolf, began hacking away at its prison with renewed vigor, tearing at the shell with gusto. Soon, it was free of its constricting cocoon, although a piece of the shell still clung to the top of its head like a little hat.

The blonde giggled at the creature, which tilted its head quizzically and gave a whine of confusion in response, making Yang laugh even harder. After a few seconds of uncontrollable giggling, Yang knelt down in the slime and placed her hand on her soldier's snout.

"There you are, little guy. Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

Slogging through the Spawning Pool's nutrient-rich sludge, both Zergling and infested human quickly exited the living pond, almost immediately being replaced by six larvae. Wiping the slime off of her shorts and legs, Yang then started cleaning off her Zergling, flicking the goop and the piece of cocoon onto the slimy earth, which quickly absorbed it like soil soaking up water.

The zerg-infested ground reminded Yang of a question she wanted to ask. Turning back to the Drone, which had been at her side the whole time, she issued her telepathic query.

 _I've been meaning to ask this; what is this slimy material that's covering the ground around the hive?_

 _"That, My Queen, is Creep; one of the most simple zerg organisms. It serves to provide nutrients to all zerg structures; all buildings but the hatchery must be built on it. It also recognizes non-zerg organisms that tread upon it, slowing them down while boosting the speed of all zerg that travel on it."_

Well, that explained why the ground had actively helped increase her strides, now that Yang thought about it, but the mention of nutrients reminded her of another question she had been meaning to ask it.

"If creep feeds the structures, then what do you and the other zerg eat?" She inquired. The endless hordes that she had been shown by the Successor were impressive, but the issue of feeding such a huge army had not gone unnoticed by the blonde.

 _"Typically Creep and the bodies of fallen combatants, but zerg can safely digest almost anything organic; the conversion process most likely passed that ability to you in part."_

As soon as the Drone mentioned digestion, Yang's stomach loudly voiced the fact that it had not been properly fed in weeks with a guttural roar. She grinned sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head with her hand. "Alright, alright, I'll go get something to eat. What else do you think we're going to need here?"

 _"An Evolution Chamber would be most useful for strengthening the Swarm in the long run, My Queen. Its construction will also spawn a unique type of zerg responsible for evolving the Swarm."_

"Evolving? You know what, never mind. As soon as another larva is born, have it mutate into an Evolution Chamber while I'm gone. I'll get the information from this new guy later. If anything unfamiliar gets too close, tell me as soon as possible."

Its orders received, the two zerg parted ways-the Drone to the rest of its kind, and the queen turning towards the woods and telepathically summoning her Zerglings. As soon as the wolf-like creatures joined her, Yang headed into the leafless woods, her reptilian hounds' noses to the ground as they began the search for anything edible, with the smallest one staying right at its mistress' heels.

* * *

 **(Warning: There be gore in this section! Skip it if you're squeamish!)**

After about ten minutes of fruitless searching, one of the Zerglings barked to signal that it had found something; an entrance to a rabbit burrow. As the rest of its brethren zeroed in towards it, the alien got to work; it foreclaws tore into the earth with incredible speed, sending dirt flying up in showers behind the zerg as it rapidly uncovered a warren of about a dozen very surprised rabbits. Letting out a chittering screech, the predatory alien immediately plunged its head into the newly-dug hole and began to slash and stab into the pit, tearing into the animals with murderous gusto.

Yang stared at the sight in horrified fascination; the Zergling used its scythe-like limbs to cleanly decapitate several rabbits in a single stroke, biting the head off of another and its foreclaws quickly tearing through the earth separating it from any of the bunnies that tried to disappear further underground. It wasn't really the deaths of the rabbits themselves that unnerved Yang: as someone who had spent her entire life training to fight the creatures of Grimm, she knew firsthand of how cruel nature could be. No, it was _how_ the Zergling was killing its prey that startled her. Unlike the wild swings and relatively uncoordinated attacks of the Grimm, the wolflike zerg was dispatching the rabbits with brutal efficiency, almost methodically, each one of its strikes coordinated to deal the killing blow and its attention entirely focused on its task, completely ignoring all outside distractions. The creatures of Grimm fought like rabid animals, and, to be fair, so did the Swarm, but the aliens coordinated and directed their savagery, tearing into their enemies with both cold methodicality and animalistic bloodlust.

 _And they all answer only to me,_ Yang thought to herself. She had definitely made the right choice by accepting the Successor's offer-the Swarm was not the kind of foe she ever wanted to face on the battlefield.

Its rabbit-slaying finally completed, the Zergling scooped up two of the least-mangled carcasses in its jaws and trotted over to Yang, dropping them at her feet like a trained retriever and looking quite pleased with itself.

"Um… thanks." Yang said uncertainly, glancing at the gory mess that still sat in the unearthed burrow. "You and the other Zerglings can finish up the rest of that, but let this little guy," she gestured to the smaller Zergling at her feet, "get the first share. He needs it the most."

With a bark, the other two Zerglings, which had been watching their sibling's actions with considerable interest, dashed over to the hole, the one responsible for the carnage quickly joining them. The three zerg plunged their heads into the bloody pit and tore into their first meal as if it was their last, with the smallest of their number digging in first as per Yang's orders. The blonde brawler herself cautiously picked up the two dead rabbits with her remaining hand and looked them over-the animals' heads had been sliced cleanly off by the Zergling's scythe-like blade, and blood was freely flowing from the neck stumps onto her hand and the snowy ground at her feet. Yang knew that she should be gagging at the sight, but there was no feeling of disgust in her mind; instead, she only felt the gnawing hunger that she had been ignoring for weeks growing stronger and stronger. Any fleeting thoughts about making a fire or cooking the rabbits faded away as she unconsciously licked her lips.

Screw cooking, she needed to eat _now_.

Yang's jaws opened wide, quite a bit wider than they could before, and revealing teeth that were much sharper than they had been prior to her transformation, as she stuffed one of the dead rabbits into her mouth, biting it in half with a _crunch_ that should have been sickening, but only served to further fuel the Huntress' hunger. Her fang-filled jaws easily snapped the rabbit's fragile bones and tore through its fur and skin, shredding the upper half within seconds and sending streams of blood running down her chin like some film vampire that had just made its kill. As soon as she swallowed her mouthful of still-warm rabbit, she picked the bottom half of the body out of her hand with her teeth and tossed her head back to properly get it into her mouth and tear it to shreds like she did the other piece.

The next dead rabbit was in for a worse fate. Chomping down on the torso of the small corpse, she yanked her head upwards while quickly pulling back her hand, tearing the rabbit's body in two gory halves and speckling Yang's entire front with dots of scarlet. Tossing her head back and slurping up the bifurcated corpse's trailing intestines into her mouth, the blonde powerhouse's new razor-sharp teeth tore apart the rabbit's body like a paper shredder just like the first one before gulping it down, the bottom half soon following its fellow portion down her throat.

Her hunger sated, Yang wiped at the copious amounts of blood around her mouth with the back of her hand and knelt down to let her smallest Zergling lick the appendage when it walked over to her. Her actions betrayed nothing about what was going on inside her head; the Huntress' mind, now free of the ravenous hunger, was reeling in shock from what she had done.

She had just consumed two raw, freshly killed rabbits, fur and all, as if she were a starving animal, tearing through the flesh with razor-sharp teeth that she had definitely _not_ had before being converted to the Swarm. Just to check Yang experimentally ran her tongue over said teeth-yes, they were definitely sharper than they were before her transformation. What if she got sick from eating that raw meat, or got some kind of disease from it? Oum above, what was going to happen to her next? Was she going to devolve into some kind of beast? Was... was this power even worth it?

 _Alright, that's enough!_ Yang shook those worrying thoughts from her head. _What's done is done; I can't change what I did now. The Successor told me that the deal would come 'at the cost of what I am' - I knew what I was getting into before I made that deal, I can live with the consequences. Besides, the Drone_ did _say that I should be able to digest this stuff. I'll be fine._

There were still a few bits of rabbit flesh stuck between her teeth; Yang's tongue unconsciously busied itself with prying them out as she walked back to the hive with her Zerglings, lost in her thoughts.

* * *

The first thing Yang noticed when she got back was the titanic cyst that signalled the development of a new structure-the Evolution Chamber, no doubt. The second thing was the six new Zerglings that were just now shaking themselves dry of the Spawning Pool's fluids. Yang looked to the three zerg at her side, their mouths coated with dried blood from their meal. The trio was staring at the newly-spawned pack with more than a little bit of longing; the smallest was actually giving her its best shot at puppy-dog eyes, or at least trying to. Yang smiled and shook her head-she was the big sister of Ruby Rose; she had long since built up an immunity to such stares over the years. Although the Zergling was undeniably giving its all, it was trying to attack an iron wall with a nail file.

"Go on, you three; go join the others." She made a 'shoo, shoo' gesture with her hand, and the three zerg creatures immediately dashed off to the rest of their kind, barking and grunting to the six other Zerglings. Yang stood there for a minute or so, watching the pack mingle with a faint smile on her face. _Y'know, that_ does _kinda look like_ fun…

Her grin widened. Eh, screw it; when in Atlas, do as the Atlesians do, as the saying went. She dashed towards the throng of Zerglings, plunging in and pushing through until she was at the center, petting every zerg she could get her arm around. Soon, the group resembled nothing so much as a huddle of reptilian puppies being fawned over by their mother, as the new queen of the Swarm made sure that each and every one of her soldiers, the finely-tuned killing machines of the zerg Swarm, knew what if felt like to be scratched under the chin and behind their horns.

* * *

After about a half hour of much-needed cuddling with her Zerglings, Yang heard the telltale creaks and cracking sounds of a zerg structure about to burst free from its cyst-like cocoon. She stood up, much to the disappointment of her brood-some of the Zerglings whimpered like puppies as she rose.

"Oh, relax, you guys." She said, patting the smallest Zergling on the head. "I just need to check up on something, alright?"

Walking towards the nearly-complete structure, the blonde brawler stood at a safe distance as the Evolution Chamber's cocoon exploded in a shower of slime.

A large structure roughly the same size as the Hatchery, the Evolution Chamber was roughly shaped like a croissant, and divided into two sections: an enormous roughly spherical mass of misshapen flesh with spikes jutting out at random intervals was joined to a rough cylinder supported by a rib-like structure around the outside, with a series of stubby segmented tentacles lying on the ground on the opposite end, curling inwards towards the spherical mass.

Yang walked towards the Evolution Chamber slowly; reaching out with her mind, she could sense the presence of the unique zerg inside. Standing in front of the large curve of the somewhat crescent-shaped building, she issued her telepathic summons.

 _Come to me. Your queen requires your presence._

Immediately, a previously-unseen valve on the roundish end of the Evolution Chamber opened like a giant mouth, and one of the strangest-looking creatures Yang had ever seen slithered out. A 15-foot-long sluglike lower body supported a barely humanoid torso, which was in turn topped with an enormous bulbous lump like a deformed mushroom cap on its back, with dozens of semi-transparent light green orbs embedded into the sides. The actual head of the creature was tiny and spiderlike, resting directly underneath this huge bulge, giving it a hunchbacked appearance. Four small bright green eyes stared directly ahead, while the enormous horizontally aligned mouth, filled with razor-sharp teeth and lined by several pairs of little mandibles like insect legs, ran from the mouth all the way down to the chestd. Four bony arms each tipped with three-clawed hands steepled their fingers together as if in prayer, while four long spindly limbs sprouted from the lower body and arched over its head, each limb ending in a scythe-like claw as large as the blade of Crescent Rose. The entire creature towered over her, standing at least eight or nine feet tall, including the enormous hunchback thing, with its limbs adding another three or four feet.

Yang kept her face neutral as she addressed the greenish-grey zerg. "Who are you?"

 **"No name. Made from essence of Abathur, Evolution Master of Swarm. Predecessor served Overmind, than served Queen of Blades. Now successor serves new Queen of Swarm."** The creature's somewhat masculine voice was guttural andlow-pitched, staying at a total monotone as it talked-verbally, Yang noted-its clawed hands motioning to bring its point across.

"Then it looks like you serve me now." The blonde replied coolly. As she spoke, her mind coiled around the creature's presence in the hive mind-not tight enough to actually do anything to the Evolution Master, but just enough to make it clear who was in charge. "Now, calling you 'Abathur's successor' is going to get real old real fast. How about I just call you Abathur as well?"

 **"Proposal is acceptable."** The newly-named Abathur slithered a bit closer to Yang, staring intensely at her. **"Examining genetic sequences of organism Yang Xiao Long… Fascinating. Species similar to Terran in general makeup. More efficient in places, but not significantly. Minimal biological adaptation in certain areas, but others dramatically different. Must take sample for further examination."** He-or at least Yang guessed that it was a 'he'-muttered, reaching out for her blonde hair… only to find himself grabbed roughly by his thin wrist and dragged down to look Yang in the eyes, which were beginning to turn bright red.

"Don't. Touch. My. Hair." She snarled, her hair glowing bright yellow and starting to stand on end, her grip tightening around the zerg's wrist until she started to cut off circulation before letting go.

Abathur quickly shrank back from his queen's furious visage, hands raised in the air and head bowed submissively, waiting for a minute or so to allow Yang to calm down before continuing. **"Sole purpose is evolving Swarm. Collect essence. Spin strands and sequences. Can view work in Evolution Pit, assign creation of specific units, repair organism Yang Xiao Long."**

Yang looked at the Evolution Master quizzically. "What do you mean, 'repair' me? And what's this about essence?" She asked.

 **"Swarm's greatest strength is adaptability. Gather genetic material of organisms. Incorporate into zerg genome. Strengthen Swarm. Adapt to environmental obstacles, weaponry of opponents."**

Yang's jaw hung open. She knew that her Swarm was already extremely dangerous, but now she was being told that they could actually adapt to become more deadly?! Oh, this was going to be fun. As she digested this information, Abathur continued.

 **"Organism Yang Xiao Long missing right grasper limb. Good. Original poorly designed, minimal biological adaptation. Can replace. Will create new one, better."**

The news snapped Yang out of her shock, only to send her right back into it as she processed this new information. "Wait, are you serious?! You can give me back my-"

Before she could finish, a bone-chilling howl sounded on the wind-a howl that Yang knew all too well. Of course. Of _course_ they would show up eventually.

The Drone's voice in her head didn't even get to finish its telepathic alert before the blonde powerhouse cut it off. _"My Queen, we are-"_

"Under attack, I know. I heard the howls. You and every other zerg besides the Zerglings, retreat to the Hatchery, **now**."

 _"Understood, My Queen."_ The Drone replied, cutting off the psychic conversation. Abathur slithered back into the Evolution Chamber, while Yang dashed towards the edge of the clearing, her nine Zerglings right behind her. Two more howls joined the first; the Grimm had arrived. It was time to test the might of the Swarm.

* * *

 **Alright, finally got this chapter done! I'm sorry that it took so long to put up, but the descriptions for the various zerg buildings and creatures, especially Abathur, took a really long time to write. They look awesome in-game, but to describe what they look like in words is an absolute _bitch._ Abathur's minimalistic style of dialogue was also a bit tricky to write, although I think I'm starting to get the hang of writing him.**

 **I apologize if this chapter seemed a bit slow; the next chapter is definitely going to be more eventful. Also, thank you so much for the reviews! It really makes my day to see how well my story's been** **received! If you have an idea for a new strain of zerg or type of Grimm, have some tips on how to properly describe zerg, have an idea for the story, or just want to say that you like Bloody Evolution, just leave a review! I've actually gotten some very good questions and ideas from you guys so far!**

 **Alexkehling: Yeah, there are still other zerg; basically, the Successor ended up on the other side of the galaxy from the Koprulu sector. The hive mind only has so much of a range, after all. Besides, the Successor was engineered to be totally separate from Kerrigan's Swarm-even if it was close by, it wouldn't be able to communicate with its former zerg-friends.**

 **Halo is bad ass: Good name idea! I was actually thinking of something very similar-Queen Inferno. However, I might use your idea instead! Thanks!**

 **DeadRich18: I hope that I lived up to your expectations with my interpretation of your idea!**

 **MEleeSmasher: I'm not sure about bringing back Pyrrha; her death was pretty damn thorough. I suppose that she _could_ perhaps be brought back from her essence and made into a zerg creature, but I doubt that there would be any essence _left_ of her body. RT was meticulous with her death, I'll give them that.**

 **: Does this chapter answer your question?**

 **GrandMaster of fiction: I'll see what I can do. The spinoff series would divide a lot of my attention from this story, however, so I'm going to keep it on the backburner for a while until I've got some more meat to this story.**

 **5 Colored Walker, mysterioustgexpert, FanficCrossoverMaster15, PsionicShadow, alexkehling, and Magisking: Thanks for telling me about the weird formatting issues with Chapter 2!**

 **And to everyone else: Thank you so much for the support!**

 **Edit (March 21, 2016): I changed some of the wording in the chapter to make it a little bit more clear. Also, reworked some of the Drones' dialogue, as per Magisking's complaint that they sounded too intelligent. I tried to inject a lot more technobabble into their speech; I imagine them as speaking sort of like Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory or maybe Mr. Spock. (Note: I've never seen a single episode of Star Trek, so correct me if the latter comparison is untrue.)**


	4. Adaptation

**Copyright Disclaimer that I really should have put in the first chapter:**

 **RWBY is the rightful property of Rooster Teeth, and Starcraft is owned by Blizzard.**

 **Note: This chapter contains scenes (well, _a_ scene) of severe violence. Which is ****_AWESOME!_**

* * *

 **Zerg Hive Cluster, Patch Island**

Under normal circumstances, Yang Xiao Long would have been quite worried. An enormous Alpha Beowolf, followed by eight of its lesser kin, was slinking out from the tree line before her, the glowing orange-red eyes of the Grimm offering a sharp contrast against the pale white of their bony armor. She, on the other hand, was alone and disarmed in more ways than one. The shadowy wolf-creatures had the extreme number advantage, and there were most likely more of them lurking just outside her line of sight in the tree line.

How fortunate for her that these were most certainly _not_ normal circumstances.

Yang smirked at the approaching beasts, the creep of the zerg hive- _her_ hive-bubbling beneath her feet like tar. Behind her, nine Zerglings were assembled; the lizard-like beasts snarled and snapped at the approaching Beowolves, but the Grimm paid them no heed, instead focusing on the blonde human before them. The Alpha specimen sniffed the air, tilting its head confusedly as it inhaled the unfamiliar scent of the zerg, but it didn't lash out, almost as if it as waiting for Yang to make the first move.

The blonde firestarter grinned. It would be her pleasure.

The Huntress shifted into a combat stance, her arm raised and her hand balled into a fist; a clear signal that she wasn't running. "What are you waiting for, ya fleabags?" She shouted. "Come and get me!"

Thinking her stillness to be an opening, the Beowolves charged forwards on all fours behind their Alpha as three more of the umbral canines burst from the tree line, slavering at what look for all the world like a helpless victim. Before the leading Grimm could get within twenty feet of her, however, Yang gave a one-word telepathic command to her forces-one that they had all been waiting for.

 _Kill._

Immediately, the Zerglings rushed forwards, screeching in anticipation of the approaching bloodshed. One soared over its queen's head with a single flying leap and landed squarely on the ground in front of the lead Beowolf, positioning itself between Yang and the Grimm while two more of its kin guarded her flanks; the other six sprinted towards the rest of the attacking monsters. The Grimm snarled at the obstructing zerg, but the alien stood firm, growling right back at its opponent before charging forwards. The wolf monster swung a clawed hand at the Zergling, but its more agile adversary easily dodged the blow, ducking underneath the limb and leaping at the Grimm's throat, the surprising amount of force behind the smaller predator's attack causing the Alpha Beowolf to actually stumble backwards upon impact with the Zergling. That momentary loss of balance was all that the zerg creature needed.

The Zergling's mandible-horns snapped shut like an organic beartrap, plunging into the sides of the Alpha Beowolf's neck and holding the monster in place while it chomped down on the Grimm's unprotected throat, its razor-sharp teeth easily tearing through skin, flesh, and muscle. The alien's claws dug into the larger monster's hide while its bladed limbs found a gap in the Grimm's shoulder armor, stabbeing downwards into the skin just behind the collarbone and staining the foul creature's black fur red. The Alpha Beowolf flailed about, trying to shake off the Zergling, but its struggles only caused the creature's grip to tighten further. The Grimm tried to howl and alert the rest of its pack, but the smaller creature's iron grip on its larynx and the large amount of its own blood that was currently streaming down its throat only allowed for a faint gurgle to escape.

In one smooth motion, the Zergling ripped the Alpha Beowolf's throat free from its neck with a jerk of its reptilian head, staining the zerg's entire front half crimson with blood. As the corpse fell backwards to the ground, the victorious zerg placed a forefoot on its victim's chest, letting out an avian screech of triumph before sprinting off with the two Zerglings at its queen's sides, eager to join the rest of the battle.

Said battle was not going well for the creatures of Grimm. Despite having the advantage in size and numbers, the Beowolves didn't stand a chance against their unfamiliar enemies. The Zerglings easily danced around the larger creatures' wild swings, taking advantage of their opponents' momentary opening to quickly dart in and slash away with their bladed limbs. Tendons were cleanly sliced, sending wolf monsters crashing to the ground, while the less fortunate Grimm were simply disemboweled within two or three slices, their steaming internal organs spilling out onto the snowy ground. The shadow monsters' armor plating was of little help to them; as soon as one of the Zerglings' blades located a chink in the bony plates, the entire pack was notified of the weakness through their hive mind, prompting all of them to strike at the unarmored gaps. Even the creep was working against the Beowolves, congealing over their paws and pulling them downwards like sticky mud, impeding their movements, while propelling the dog-like zerg creatures to even greater speeds.

A snarl and a hissing screech snapped Yang out of her observations; a second Alpha Beowolf had somehow gotten past her Zerglings and had pounced on a Drone, dragging it from the Hatchery and pinning it down with a razor-clawed paw. The lupine creature slowly raked its knife-like talons across one of the alien's webbed wings, tearing through the thin membrane with ease and earning a shriek of pain from the thrashing Drone. If the Grimm's furry snout had the necessary musculature, it would have been grinning like a cat that had just swallowed the canary as it took its time to torture its prey, drinking in the agony it was inflicting.

Yang would have none of it.

Charging forwards at speeds she didn't know she could reach with a cry of pure and utter fury, the blonde firebrand slammed into the Grimm with a shoulder check, the force of the impact knocking the lycanthropic creature back several feet and breaking several of its ribs with an audible _crack_ , despite the fact that Yang was less than half of the Beowolf's size. Standing firmly between the Drone and the Grimm, the zerg queen snarled at the monster, her vision gaining a crimson tint as her eyes glowed an identical shade of red.

This _vermin_ had _dared_ to harm a member of her Swarm.

It was going to die. In _pieces_.

Charging towards the Alpha Beowolf at top speed once more, Yang's fist slammed into the Grimm's torso like a meteor, the lupine creature's already-cracked ribs shattering with an audible _crunch_. As she swung over and over again, the newly-infested human could barely hear herself speak over the roar of blood in her ears as she snarled the last words her opponent would ever hear, every word punctuated by the sound of bones breaking.

"You!" A blow to the skull, causing thousands of hairline cracks to spread across the right side of the Beowolf's bone mask.

"Will!" A vicious kick to the leg, shattering the left kneecap.

"Not!" Another blow to the torso, forcing several rib fragments deep into the Grimm's lungs.

"Hurt!" Yang grabbed the monster by the wrist and pulled, tearing the Alpha Beowolf's right arm clean off at the elbow.

"My!" She sidestepped the Grimm's frantic swing with its remaining arm, stabbing the splintered bone shards at the end of the severed limb deep into the wolf-like beast's side.

"Swarm!" As the monster howled in pain, the zerg queen grabbed the Beowolf by the throat and _squeezed_ , her vice-like grasp crushing the monster's windpipe like a toilet paper tube. As the Grimm tried to yowl in pain through its crushed larynx, she yanked her hand back, tearing out the Grimm's trachea with one smooth motion and tossing it to the ground, killing it instantly.

As the Beowolf's corpse dropped to the frozen earth, the baleful light in its eyes fading and blood streaming from the gaping hole that was once its jugular, Yang threw her head back into the air, an inhuman cry of victory tearing its way free of her throat.

 _"SKRRREEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"_

As the infested human roared, her Zerglings, seemingly given strength by their queen's triumph, threw themselves into combat with renewed vigor, tearing into the invading Grimm at an even faster rate. With almost the entire pack now lying dead on the ground, the few surviving Beowolves did something Yang never thought she would see in her lifetime-they turned and ran back into the woods, tails between their legs; the Zerglings, dyed crimson with blood and viscera, screeched in victory, their birdlike calls filling the air. The blonde brawler gawked at the sight for only a moment, however, quickly turning her attentions back to the wounded Drone, her eyes fading to lilac once again as the adrenaline rush subsided.

The worker wasn't in good shape; its right pincer was connected by only a few threads of flesh, while its left hung limply at its side, broken in at least two different places. The entire right wing was torn, grounding the zerg organism, and its carapace was cracked in several places, leaking copious amounts of blood onto the creep-covered ground.

"No, no, no, no, no. You are _not_ dying on me." Yang muttered to herself, scouring her memory for anything she could think of about setting wounds as she frantically placed her hand over a particularly nasty wound and applied pressure in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.

 _"Do not worry, My Queen,"_ the Drone murmured, its mechanical tone sounding tired and weakened. _"I will recover in time; zerg regularly endure and completely recover from damage much worse than this. Consuming biomass should increase my rate of recovery even more."_

"Biomass, huh?" The blonde firestarter asked, looking over her shoulder at the already-dissipating corpse of the Alpha Beowolf she had just killed. "I think I know just the thing."  
Walking over to the dead Grimm, Yang grabbed hold of the Grimm's body by the wrist of its remaining arm and dragged it over to the Drone. "Here, eat up. It's not exactly premium meat, but it should do."

The worker nodded in understanding, not exerting itself further by communicating as it used its remaining legs to drag itself towards the corpse. It sank its mandibles into the Beowolf's furry hide, biting off a large chunk of meat…

Immediately, the zerg's eyes blazed red, a tortured shriek resonating through the hive mind. Yang yelled in pain and clutched her hand to her head, but the pain from the cry was soon replaced by an even worse burning sensation within her mind, as if something was forcibly dissolving her connection to the Drone. The young woman desperately grabbed hold of the creature's mental presence and held tight, but within seconds, the zerg's presence in the hive mind was gone, torn free from her grasp by the agonizing process. What now stood before the blonde firebrand… was not her Drone.

The newly-transformed zerg glared up at its former queen with several dozen glowing red eyes, snapping its saliva-dripping mandibles hungrily even as its prone body twitched and convulsed, taking on new nightmarish qualities. Rough, uneven bony armor plates collected over its wounds like thickened white scabs, while ashen-grey skin stretched between the many tears in its wings and similarly-colored tissue knitted itself over the ruined forelimbs. The patchwork creature flapped its leg-wings and took to the air, issuing a gurgling cry as it began to rush towards Yang…

Until a curved blade, thin as a rapier and curved like a scythe, stabbed downwards into the feral Drone's carapace and punched through its underside, spearing it like a fish.

Abathur loomed over the corrupted zerg, effortlessly lifting it up into the air until it was level with his spider-like face. The impaled abomination squirmed and snapped at the larger creature, but its cries were cut short as the Evolution Master cleanly decapitated the Grimm-zerg with a quick swipe of his other bladed limb.

 **"Organism Abathur cannot allow harm to new queen of Swarm."** Abathur intoned, calmly sliding the twisted creature's body off of his blade and letting it fall to the ground. Yang, on the other hand, was still reeling from the pain of the Drone's egress from the hive mind.

"Th… thank you, Abathur, but… what the hell _was_ that?" She asked, shaking her head a couple times and massaging her temple.

 **"Unsure, but direct consumption of Grimm biomass not recommended."** The Evolution Master replied, slithering over to the corrupted zerg's corpse and picking up its severed head, examining it closely. **"Recommended: Direct deposition into Hatchery."**

"Al… alright. I'll have the Drones do that immediately. As soon as that biomass is processed, I want you to start looking these Beowolves' essence over to find out why… _that_ just happened; as soon as you find the reason, I want a way to stop it."

Although she was still staggering a bit from the mental agony she had experienced moments before, Yang dipped into the hive mind and extended her telepathic presence to the rest of the hive cluster.

 _All Drones, stop what you're doing and bring those Grimm corpses to the Hatchery. Tear them into smaller pieces with your claws-for the love of Oum,_ don't _eat them._

 _I want the first six larvae that emerge to morph into additional Drones; two of you, do the same thing that the other Drones are doing, and the other four, morph into…_

The blonde powerhouse looked to Abathur. "What can I spawn right now for some more defense? I don't want us getting caught with our pants down like that again."

 **"Spine Crawler; anti-ground defensive structure. Spore Crawler; anti-air defensive structure. Mutate from Drones, plant on Creep. Can uproot and move to different location, but dies slowly if rooted in area lacking creep. Zerg organisms: Roach, armored creature, requires Roach Warren. Spits acid; can burrow to heal wounds. Hydralisk, ranged unit, requires Hydralisk Den. Fires spines at opponents."** As Abathur talked, images passed through Yang's mind of the creatures; images of razor-edged tentacles, armored insectoid monsters, and vaguely humanoid serpentine beasts.

"Got it. We'll need all of the firepower we can get." She continued her orders. _You heard Abathur; two Drones in Group B, morph into Spine Crawlers, while the other two morph into a Hydralisk Den and a Roach Warren. We are_ not _letting an incident like that happen again._

Abathur nodded, spearing the headless Drone carcass on one of his bladed limbs to carry back to the Evolution Chamber, but his queen called out after him before he could get too far.

"Hey, Abathur, I just thought of something." Yang turned to the severed zerg head. "This guy," she nudged the tainted skull with her toe, "Sure met… a _Grimm_ end." A wide grin split across her face as she smiled at her own pun.

Abathur, the reincarnation of the Evolution Master of the Swarm, architect of the Queen of Blades and creator of the many deadly species of the Swarm, facepalmed. **"Pun quality: abysmal."**

* * *

Within about fifteen minutes, it was done; Yang's three surviving Drones had immediately set to work on the dead Beowolves, their pincers being put to good use in tearing the meat into smaller chunks. Yang herself had also done her best to pitch in, dragging the bodies furthest from the Hatchery closer to the hive. Although three Beowolves had dissipated before they could be collected, eight more, including the two Alphas, had been successfully harvested for their biomass before their bodies had degraded too much-the assistance of two newly-hatched Drones near the end greatly sped up the process.

At the moment, the five Drones were digging into the earth a short distance from the Hatchery at the edge of the creep cover at Yang's command to start mining for minerals, their pincers carving through the frozen soil with little difficulty. Abathur had retreated into the Evolution Chamber to examine the Grimm's essence, and the cysts containing the two developing Spine Crawlers stood at opposite edges of the creep while the ones containing the Roach Warren and Hydralisk Den stood near the Spawning Pool, ready to burst open at any moment.

Yang herself was currently entering the Evolution Chamber, wiping her hand, stained with Beowolf blood, on the organic wall of the structure as she entered. The interior of the Chamber reminded her of an enormous stomach, with the creep-coated floor curving upwards at the edges to form outwards-arching walls and curving upwards to form the domed ceiling. Fist-sized orbs glowing with pale yellow light dangled from the ceiling on ropy tendrils, while dozens of empty cocoons, looking like larger versions of the ones that her larvae encased themselves in to evolve into Drones and Zerglings, were embedded into said walls at ground level. Near the center of the room sat a roughly oval-shaped pool of green fluids set into the ground, similar to the larger Spawning Pool outside, with the decapitated Drone carcass floating on its back in the middle of it.

The Evolution Master himself was 'standing' in front of this pool, holding the hands of his second pair of arms about three feet apart, a ghostly yellow image of a DNA helix bridging the space between his palms. Abathur was plucking at the helix with the claws on his first pair of hands, pulling out individual bars and scrutinizing them, tossing some aside and placing others into different locations. Sensing his queen's arrival, the creature turned to Yang, dispelling the genetic sequence with a flick of his wrists.

"Found anything?" She asked, hand resting on her hip.

 **"Relevation. Discovered reason of Drone corruption."** The zerg scientist replied, steepling the fingers on all four of his hands as he spoke, as if he were a supervillain from an old spy film.

 **"Essence of organism Beowolf like virus. When consumed, incorporates new traits into genetic structure on level of organism Yang Xiao Long's infestation. Drastically degrades mental functions, cuts off from hive mind. Hypothesis: similar behavior in essence of other 'creatures of Grimm'. Problematic to harvest for biomass, almost impossible to extract essence. Solution: adapt. Can extend digestive system of zerg organisms, strengthen gastric enzymes. Dissolve tainted portions of Grimm essence, allow safe consumption. Can cocoon all zerg units, introduce into genetic code of Swarm at any time. Can also apply to organism Yang Xiao Long, if wished-current digestive system inefficient, incapable of effectively metabolizing uncooked flesh. Evolution will improve digestive system immensely, widen diet."**

"Good to hear that you found a solution for this; we don't need this problem hovering over us any more. I want that evolution applied to all zerg in the hive immediately." Yang said. "And that goes for me, too." She added after a moment of thought. While the idea of eating the creatures of Grimm wasn't exactly appealing to the blonde firestarter, her new carnivorous tendencies would definitely require some improvements to her digestive system, just in case she really did pick up some kind of disease. "However, there _is_ something else I wanted to ask of you first."

 **"Name required task."**

"You said earlier that you could regrow my arm, right?" The young woman asked hopefully, wiggling the stump of her severed limb to make it clear what she wanted of the Evolution Master.

Abathur nodded in understanding. **"Simple matter, but not recommended. Grasper limbs of Organism Yang Xiao Long poorly designed. Minimal biological adaptation. Biomass insufficient for extensive modification, but improvisation possible."**

"Woah, woah, woah, Abathur, my arms are fine; I don't want you to-" Yang raised a hand to argue, but suddenly stopped herself mid-sentence. The Evolution Master brought up a good point; her fists hadn't been enough to against Cinder and the White Fang before, and they wouldn't be any more helpful now. _When in Atlas, I suppose._ She thought ruefully. She was zerg now; it was time to act the part. If she truly wanted to get revenge, she, too, needed to evolve.

"On second thought, I wouldn't mind a _few_ modifications…" She trailed off.

 **"Name improvements organism Yang Xiao Long wishes implemented."**

The blonde firebrand stood silently for a few minutes, pondering. If she wanted to stand against her foes, she needed to improve herself in every way possible. But no matter what upgrades Yang made to herself, they wouldn't be of much use to her without some serious firepower-firepower that she no longer had, now that her Ember Celica were gone.

At the memory of her weapons, the blonde powerhouse's mind was made up. "Abathur, is it possible for me to show you my memories?" She asked.

 **"Certainly possible through hive mind. Reason?"**

"Because I'm about to show you what I want." With that, Yang plunged into the hive mind, accessing the Evolution Master's mind and thinking back to her days at Signal Academy, of the blueprints for her beloved weapons. She dredged up every last iota of information she had about Ember Celica-their weight down to the last milligram, the maximum amount of ammunition they could hold, the feeling of the recoil from each shot, and that oh-so-satisfying sound it made when the blasts of kinetic energy hit flesh.

One of the perks of going to Signal-each and every student knew their weapons inside and out.

The blonde brawler gathered up all of her memories of the gauntlets and fed them through the hive mind, pouring them into Abathur's brain like molten metal into a cast. If this wasn't enough to rebuild her weapons, then nothing would be sufficient.

"If I'm going to lead the Swarm to stand against my enemies, I'll need my original weapons back. I want you to recreate them as best you can."

Abathur was silent for a minute as he mentally examined the gauntlets' blueprints; Yang could almost hear the gears in his head turning as he examined her memories.

 **"Interesting, interesting…"** The zerg scientist muttered. **"Cannot exactly replicate item Ember Celica…"**

Yang visibly deflated.

 **"But exact replication unnecessary."** He continued. **"Can improve on organism Yang Xiao Long's design, eliminate flaws."**

"Wait, flaws?!" Yang indignantly exclaimed, her temper flaring up and her eyes turning red. While the blonde firebrand wasn't quite as weapon-crazy as her younger sister, she still took considerable pride in the Ember Celica. _"Excuse_ me?! _"_

 **"Flaws inherent to all Terran weaponry, not unique to item Ember Celica."** Abathur quickly added, quickly backing away from his queen before continuing at a safe distance. **"Item Ember Celica unlike previously encountered Terran weapons-combines melee and ranged capabilities, folds into compacted form. However, flaw shared by all Terran ranged weaponry still present-must reload after certain number of shots. Will look into alternative forms of ammunition, eliminate need for reloading."**

"Oh, then I suppose that's alright." Yang replied, calmer now that she knew that Abathur wasn't talking smack about her weapon. Actually, now that she thought of it, the Evolution Master didn't seem like the type to dislike anything without good reason; the realization caused a small amount of guilt to sink down into her stomach. "I'm sorry for lashing out like that, Abathur. You have served me well so far; I shouldn't have blown up at you like I did."

Abathur said nothing, but the blonde powerhouse could feel his confusion through the hive mind. "It's not that hard to reply, you know." She deadpanned. "It's a human custom to thank someone who says they're sorry about something."

 **"Will remember. Apology recognized and appreciated."**

"Good. Make whatever other improvements you can to me, but don't go _too_ crazy, alright? We're working on a budget here in terms of biomass."

 **"Unclear. Mental health irrelevant for spinning of sequences. However, will keep changes minimal."**

Yang sighed and made a mental note to teach her top-and for that matter, her _only_ -scientist a thing or two about human customs.

"Good Oum, I'm becoming _Weiss_." She muttered to herself, before something else came to her.

"Hang on; will I still be able to lead the Swarm while you're… improving me?"

 **"Affirmative. While evolving, organism Yang Xiao Long can still command Swarm through psionic connection of hive mind. Psionic essence can communicate with zerg, move freely throughout reach of creep."**

"Then what are we waiting for?" The golden-haired powerhouse grinned. While Abathur's technobabble had gone right over her head, she still gotten the gist of it; regrowing her arm wouldn't leave her hive without a leader. "Let's get my arm back!"

Abathur nodded and slithered towards one of the empty cocoons embedded into the walls, his clawed fingers grazing the surface of its plastic shell. Immediately, the covering split and peeled back, yawning wide like an open maw. The Evolution Master slid over to the side, gesturing for his queen to enter the cocoon.

 **"Evolution requires organism Yang Xiao Long to enter cocoon. Changes will be made to digestive tract first, then will improve arms."**

Yang just nodded, walking over and entering the egg-like structure. As soon as she had done so, the shell sealed shut again, tinting the view outside faint green. Veinlike tendrils slithered out from the walls, wrapping themselves around the infested human's limbs and pumping a steady stream of zerg essence into her system with a few faint pricks. The blonde firestarter closed her eyes, keeping herself calm and collected even as the tendrils pierced her skin. As she slipped into unconsciousness, a faint smile was on her face.

It was time for the first step towards her revenge.

* * *

Yang slowly opened her eyes, awakening to a view of her own face through the glassy surface of the cocoon, the smile still on her lips. With a small squeak of surprise, she frantically tried to backpedal away from the sight… only to realize that she didn't have feet anymore.

Somehow, the blonde brawler was floating above the ground at about the same height as her body's face. As she looked down to try and get a look at herself, Yang quickly realized that she didn't _have_ a physical form anymore-she was a mass of nothing floating in the air.

 _This must be what Abathur meant by my 'psionic essence' being able to move around,_ she thought to herself. Alright, great; she wouldn't be helpless. Yang tried to walk forwards, but a new problem surfaced-she didn't have any legs to move. _Well, crap. So much for that._ She wondered if this was how it felt to have one of those out-of-body experiences she had heard about; was there some kind of trick to this?

 **"Will not move by trying to focus on limbs."** The guttural voice of Abathur suddenly piped up. **"Must not focus on how to move, but where."**

Yang whirled around to see Abathur standing in front of the central pool again, facing away from her and once more fiddling with a DNA helix.

"You can-" Yang stopped herself as she realized that she wasn't making any noise as she talking, quickly switching to telepathy. - _I mean, you can see me?_

 **"Affirmative and negative. Organism Yang Xiao Long's psionic essence can be detected by all organisms connected to zerg hive mind. Not directly seen, but location known."**

 _Oh, I…_ guess _that makes sense._ Yang replied. That explained how the Evolution Master knew where she was, despite the fact that he hadn't turned around at all for the entirety of their conversation. _So all I have to do is just focus on_ where _to move, but not_ how _I'm moving?_

 **"Affirmative."** Abathur confirmed, squinting at a bar of what must have been Yang's genetic code as he held it up to one of his many eyes.

The former human looked towards the exit of the Evolution Chamber, focusing on the creep in front of it. She shifted her attention from trying to take a step to _willing_ herself to move, almost leaning forwards as she did so.

Sure enough, the blonde brawler began to move, gliding quickly and smoothly over the creep. As she arrived at the building's exit hatch, the valve-like structure opened to allow her mental projection to leave. It seemed that she had only been out for a few seconds-the structures she had ordered built had yet to burst free of their development cysts, and the hole her Drones were digging had only deepened by a few inches; said Drones were now shaking themselves dry of the fluids of the cocoons they had just exited in order to receive Abathur's newest upgrade. Floating towards the closest cyst, Yang peered into the semi-transparent object-a spiny object resembling the Hatchery could be seen through the amber fluids.

 _I wonder…_ She thought to herself, an idea suddenly coming to her. Looking up at the Overlord hovering above the hive, she focused on floating higher up into the air. Sure enough, she immediately began to ascend, soon 'standing' at the level of the giant floating zerg, which turned to look at her through its four glowing yellow eyes.

 _So_ this _is what it's like from your perspective._ she 'told' the creature. _I've gotta say, it's peaceful._

The Overlord snorted in agreement, startling a pair of small birds that had been perching on its mountainous back and earning a telepathic giggle from its queen.

 _Alright, big guy, I've got to go. See you!_

Descending back to the ground, Yang 'settled' herself directly on top of one of the Hatchery's maw-spikes and looked out over her hive, her mind going into the same analytical state she went into whenever she played a game.

While the blonde brawler hadn't exactly been a star student in Beacon, she was far from the airhead that many wrote her off as (Never in front of her, obviously-the last guy who tried that ended up in the hospital with both legs broken, a mouthful of lost teeth, and half a dozen shattered ribs). When it came to games of strategy, she had a surprising knack, quickly figuring out what she could do with the resources allotted to her and using them as best she could to utterly devastate her opponents. One of the walls in her bedroom was decorated with trophies she had won in chess tournaments when she was younger, and she had been the undefeated champion of _Remnant: the Game_ during her time at Beacon. Heck, Qrow had even taken her to a casino once on her eleventh birthday; she had actually managed to win a substantial amount of cash before Taiyang had finally managed to locate the two and drag them back home.

Now, it was time to put that strategic mind to use.

The development cysts burst open, revealing the nightmarish structures within; two Spine Crawlers, each a 20-foot-long tendril as thick as a tree trunk forming the shape of a question mark tipped with a razor-sharp barb shaped like a Deathstalker's sting situated in the center of a ring of spikes protruding from the ground, stood at opposite ends of the hive, their stings twitching in anticipation of being plunged into living flesh; a Hydralisk Den, which looked like a smaller Hatchery with the central maw slumping over and lying on the ground; and the Roach Warren, which resembled a circular chitin dome set on an elevated platform, with several pairs of large inwards-curving bone spikes on the back, one pair atop of the other, and an organic stairway lined with inwards-curving tusks leading into an entrance.

 _Perfect._ The blonde thought to herself. Time to _really_ start setting up shop. She cast her reach out into the hive mind, finding that she currently had no less than thirteen larvae milling around the Hatchery and relaying her psychic command to them.

 _All right, you lot; I want one of you to morph into an Overlord, four to morph into Zerglings, four into Roaches, and four into Hydralisks. If we run out of space in the hive mind, wait until the second Overlord has been birthed before cocooning yourselves._

The wormlike creatures obeyed immediately; one larva wrapped itself up in a massive cocoon, while three others headed for their respective structures; the first slithered into the maw of the Hydralisk Den, the second to the entryway of the Roach Warren, and the third into the Spawning Pool. The rest of the small zerg sat stock-still, staring avidly at the developing Overlord's chrysalis.

While the remaining larvae prepared to cocoon themselves, Yang turned her attentions to her Zerglings, who were currently scattered around the hive, napping or playing chase with one another.

 _Zerglings, listen up!_ She telepathically barked; immediately, all nine of the creatures stopped whatever they were doing and snapped to attention with almost military precision, all eyes focusing on her perch. _I want you all to split into groups of three; two groups stay here and guard the hive while one patrols the woods around the hive, staying within 50 feet of this clearing. If you see anything bigger than a mouse come within that distance, kill it and bring the body back here for the Drones to break down into biomass. I want the group patrolling to change shifts with one of the two groups staying here every twenty minutes. Now hop to it!_

At once, the wolflike reptilian creatures leapt into action; one trio-which Yang recognized as her original batch of Zerglings-took off into the woods, while the other six began to circle the small hive, staying on the edge of the creep.

Within a few minutes, her zerg began to break free from their cocoons: a second Overlord joined the first above the Hatchery, while four new zerg creatures emerged from the structures they had been metamorphosing in.

The Hydralisk Den's slumping mouth opened wide, releasing a 7-foot-tall creature with a somewhat humanoid upper body, a snakelike tail in the place of hind legs, scythe-like claws on its arms, chitin plating covering its body, a head hanging in front of the chest, and hundreds of quills on its back, while a four-legged beetle-like creature the size of a black bear with a heavy spiked shell, a small reptilian head with four eyes and mandibles, and a pair of large, sharp claws mounted on the shell where the bladed limbs would be on a Zergling exited the Roach Warren. At the same time, two Zerglings leapt out of the Spawning Pool, their wings fluttering as they shook off the slime of the Spawning Pit. The rest of the larvae filed into their respective structures, cocooning themselves as they prepared to develop into new forms of zerg.

 _Wait a minute,_ Yang thought to herself as she counted her new forces. _I only ordered one larva to mutate into a Zergling. What gives?_

 _ **Zergling essence extremely simple in structure. Typically allows for two per larva. Resources previously insufficient to produce two Zerglings per chrysalis. One Zergling per larva, less expensive, provides protection. Not ideal, but efficient.**_ Abathur's voice suddenly echoed in her mind. _**Additional information. Essence of organism Yang Xiao Long fully examined by organism Abathur. Digestive system improvements complete. Requested modifications to be implemented immediately.**_ He added, reporting his progress on his queen's evolution.

 _Thank you, Abathur. I'm not complaining about it; it just means more zerg for the hive._ Yang replied before shifting her attention back to the hive. In the time that she and Abathur had been talking, the rest of the units she had ordered had finished developing. Six more Zerglings had joined the eight on patrol, three Roaches were standing at attention next to the first one she had spawned, and the first Hydralisk was now joined by three more of its kind.

If the blonde powerhouse had a mouth, she would have been grinning like a kid in a candy store at the sight of her army, now numbering twenty-four as the Zergling trio lurking in the treeline re-entered the clearing, one of them carrying a partially-chewed up badger carcass in its jaws that it passed off to a Drone to convert into biomass. Yes, this was more than a sufficient fighting force, but the memory of her deceased Drone's agonized screaming was still fresh in the blonde brawler's mind.

 _Drone, I have a question._ She glided down to the ground and entered the mind of one of the digging zerg workers, floating alongside it and 'talking' as it deposited its payload of regurgitated soil into the Hatchery. _Do zerg have any units capable of healing their own?_

 _"That would be a Queen; spawned directly from the Hatchery instead of a larva, and serves as a support unit. Fires quills, heals zerg, and lays Creep Tumors to spread creep. Why do you ask, My Queen?"_ The Drone answered, not showing the slightest sign of surprise at the sudden voice of its ruler echoing in its brain.

 _I don't want to worry about the health of my forces after every battle. Having something that can heal wounds would be extremely beneficial._ The zerg queen replied. _I want one to be spawned immediately or as soon as we have the biomass, whichever comes first._

 _"As you wish, My Queen."_ The zerg replied, returning to its hole-digging.

Cutting off her telepathic conversation, the blonde brawler floated her consciousness back up to her place atop the Hatchery, sending out one last command to her hive, this time to a pair of newly-spawned larvae.

 _I need you two to mature into Drones; once you finish, mutate into Spine Crawlers at the other two corners of the hive cluster that the other two we have aren't covering. I want this base protected from all sides in case of attack._

As the two larvae began to wrap themselves in their chrysalises, Yang heard a scraping, skittering sound coming from within the organic structure. One of the delivery orifices stretched and expanded until a fully grown Ursa could walk through before disgorging the newest addition to the Swarm.

The creature's lower body looked like that of a bulkier Drone, with glowing green spots running along the sides and an orifice that looked like a fist-sized gaping maw, void of teeth but flanked by a pair of mandibles, in the place of a tail. Six spider-like legs supported the body, each ending in a sharp blade-like claw, with webbing like the leg membranes of a Drone connecting the limbs together. The creature's upper body, mounted on the lower body like a centaur, had a torso somewhat shaped like that of a human, but the resemblance ended there. Chitin plating covered the body like a suit of armor, and a pair of thin arms ending in three-clawed hands swiped at the air, while a pair of smaller mantis-like limbs was mounted below the arms, the blades on the end twitching as if they couldn't wait to tear skin and rend flesh, and a pair of many-jointed limbs shaped like Abathur's spear-limbs arched above the head, with hundreds of straight spines sprouting from where the shins would be on a human leg down and pointing forwards. The face had no visible nose or ears, just a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a set of suspiciously human-like jaws equipped with razor-sharp teeth flanked by a pair of sharp-toothed mandibles, with the back of the head projecting back almost a foot, decorated with bony ridges, short spikes, and several dozen segmented hair-like tendrils growing from the underside. The nightmarish creature turned to where Yang's psionic presence was located and lowered its head respectfully, sweeping its arms out as if it were attempting to curtsy.

 _So, I take it that you are a Queen?_ The blonde brawler asked.

The zerg nodded. "Indeed, My Queen. I live to serve the will of the Swarm." It replied, its vaguely feminine voice raspy and hoarse, but also stilted and awkward, as if it were a prerecorded message speaking rather than a living creature.

 _Um, good to hear, my subject._ The infested human replied, more than a little creeped out by the Queen's lifeless tone. The Queen's dialogue was just as mechanical as the Drones', but it was somehow more disturbing coming from the larger creature, especially with the many suspiciously human-like features it had. _Uh, I want you to extend the creep near those two developing Spine Crawlers, then head to the Zerglings. We just had a minor skirmish with a pack of local creatures; I want you to heal any injuries that they might have._

"As you command, My Queen." The zerg replied robotically, quickly skittering off, the creep propelling the centaur-like creature forward with each step. Reaching the first development cyst within seconds, the Queen's lower back arched upwards, a misshapen clump of indistinct tissue dropping from the orifice on its lower end like a freshly-laid egg. The lump, at first the size of a baseball, quickly began to expand and grow; within seconds, it was easily the size of a Zergling. Creep began to ooze out from the thing like water from a sponge, pooling around it and expanding the reach of the slimy material. Soon, the creep around the Spine Crawler cyst had extended by almost ten feet, with the Creep Tumor responsible pulsing as if it would burst at any moment. The Queen quickly scuttled across the hive cluster and repeated the process next to the other developing Spine Crawler before heading to the pack of Zerglings, which all gathered around the larger creature as they saw it coming.

Looking over each zerg organism before it, the creature brooded over the smaller Zerglings like a mother hen clucking over her chicks, opening jaws to examine their teeth, picking bits of dirt and creep from the lizard-like creatures' hides, and tending to the admittedly minor wounds that Yang's forces had sustained by spitting a strange glowing green slime on any injuries it found; as soon as the ooze touched a wound, the injuries healed at an incredible rate, cuts sealing up and chipped claws mending themselves almost instantly. Within moments, the Zerglings were in perfect condition, chittering and hissing to each other.

 _Strange._ Yang 'said' to herself. When it was tending to the pack, the Queen seemed more… alive. There was more energy in its movements, more spring in its step, and the blonde brawler could even hear the creature actually chittering happily to itself as it fussed over the Zerglings. Even though she had only interacted with the creature for a few seconds, this didn't seem like it at all. The blonde brawler made a mental note to ask Abathur about the Queen's strange personality.

 _ **Notification. Evolution of organism Yang Xiao Long complete. Psionic essence can enter body and exit cocoon.**_ Abathur's voice echoed right on cue, snapping the infested human's consciousness out of her thoughts.

 _Thank you, Abathur._ The blonde brawler replied. _I'll be there momentarily._

Steering herself towards the Evolution Chamber, the zerg queen glided through the mouth-like hatch, flying over the pool in the center of the chamber and stopping at the cocoon containing her newly-improved body; since she had been gone, the casing had become clouded and opaque, rendering it impossible for the young Huntress to get a sneak peak of herself.

 _Alright, I managed to do this before; I can do it again. Now I just have to do it backwards._ She told herself, mentally reaching forwards and 'touching' the cocoon. The golden-haired firebrand focused on the form within the chrysalis, grasping onto it through the hive mind and pulling herself forwards. Sure enough, she felt a strong tug on her consciousness, as if her body was physically towing her mental being back into her skull. Riding out the strange sensation, Yang relaxed her metaphysical 'body', pouring herself back into her physical form like water through a funnel. A rushing sensation filled her being, and everything went black.

* * *

Yang opened her eyes to find herself lying against the interior wall of her cocoon, the fluids having drained out of it and the tendrils retracted. So the evolution had worked; she was back in her body again. The blonde powerhouse brushed aside her feelings of amazement: freaking out over how cool her out-of-body experience had been could wait. Right now, she had a Swarm to lead.

Immediately, she pushed herself out of the cocoon, her hands grasping the edges of the egg-like structure as she stepped out-

Wait a minute; _hands?_ As in, plural? Yang quickly looked at the stump on her right side, only to find… an arm, complete with a fully-formed hand.

"Holy crap." She breathed, examining the new appendage closely. It wasn't _entirely_ like her old arm - smooth insectoid chitin plating, light tan in color, now protected the forearm, almost like the Ember Celica did in her days at Signal and Beacon - but besides that, it was a near-perfect replica of what she had had months before.

 _Wait a minute._ Yang thought to herself, quickly flicking her wrist forward-the mechanism that had activated her beloved weapons. Sure enough, the chitin plates immediately extended, covering the backs of her hands and a small hole forming above the wrist-a near-perfect replica of one of the barrels of her golden gauntlets. But the transformation wasn't over: smaller chitin plates covered the backs of the blonde brawler's fingers and wrapped around her digits, while a larger one slid across the palm of her hand. Within seconds, her fist looked like it was covered by a gauntlet made entirely out of the articulated plates of an insect's shell; as the Huntress flexed her fingers, she realized that these armor plates didn't impede her movements at all, bending and shifting as if it were a second skin-which, now that Yang thought about it, it kind of _was_. Quickly looking over to her left hand, the golden-haired firebrand experimentally flicked her other wrist; sure enough, armor folded out over the limb, just as it had on her right one.

A grin stretched out across the girl's face. "Ha, ha, all _right!_ " She shouted, pumping her armored fists. "Look out, world; Yang Xiao Long is back in action!"

Abathur gave a curt nod as he observed his queen's reactions, steepling his fingers as he studied her reaction.

 _ **"Organism Abathur presumes that organism Yang Xiao Long enjoys replication of item Ember Ce-urk!"**_

The Evolution Master's inquiry was suddenly cut off as Yang dashed towards him and grabbed him in a bear hug, her improved arms easily wrapping around his thin midsection and taking the zerg scientist totally by surprise.

 _ **"Actions of organism Yang Xiao Long… unclear."**_ Abathur said, clearly somewhat uncomfortable with this unfamiliar sensation despite his monotone. He looked down somewhat nervously at his queen, only to find himself at a loss for words.

Tears were running down the golden-haired human's cheeks in thin streams, despite the huge smile she had on her face. He scratched the mushroom-like growth on his back in puzzlement.

 _ **"Confusion. Organism Yang Xiao Long is engaging tear ducts. Tears sign of distress, but hormone levels indicate intense joy is being experienced. Unclear. Error in sequences, perhaps?"**_

"No, Abathur - _*sniff*_ \- I'm fine." Yang said somewhat tearfully, releasing the being responsible for making her whole again from her death grip and wiping her runny nose on her arm-thankfully, the slimes of the cocoon had seemingly totally removed themselves from both the blonde and her clothing, leaving her completely dry. "I'm happy, don't worry. That's - _*sniff*_ \- why I'm crying." She held up her newly armor-plated fist. "You gave me my arm back. You… you fixed me. Thanks." Her voice was calm, almost solemn, as she thanked the Evolution Master. "I owe you."

 **"Organism Yang Xiao Long owes nothing to organism Abathur."** Abathur shrugged, blunt as ever. **"Was happy to improve you. Challenge of recreating item Ember Celica engaging. Can use to better improve Swarm."** With that, he continued on

 **"Implemented far more than simple weapon recreation and regrowth of grasper limb. Increased muscle and bone density; strength, speed, endurance, durability all increased. Improved digestive system; safe consumption of virtually all organic matter possible. Added claws to digits; increased melee combat proficiency-"**

"Wait, _claws?!_ " Yang exclaimed, looking down at her fingers and concentrating momentarily, feeling new muscles within the tips of her digits and tensing them. Immediately, razor-sharp talons, each measuring four inches long, erupted from her fingertips; with another second of concentration, they retracted again. The blonde brawler grinned like a kid in a candy store at the sight of it, extending and retracting her new claws several times before snapping out of it.

 _Oh, this is going to be_ fun.

"Thank you for the enhancements, Abathur. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take them for a test run." The blonde brawler said happily, a somewhat maniacal grin spreading across her features. Striding out of the Evolution Chamber, she waved to her Queen with her newly-regrown right arm, who chittered in approval at the sight.

 _All combat-based zerg units, converge to me._ Her mental command carried over the hive cluster; as soon as the command left her mind, her little crew of horrors gathered together, standing before her and awaiting her command.

Yang's grin grew even wider as she stood before her assembled forces; a troop of slavering monsters that appeared to have crawled directly out of the depths of Hell, and every last one of them served her and her alone.

A few Beowolves had escaped after their failed attack on her; it was time to show them the full extent of their folly in attacking the Swarm.

"Prepare to mobilize. We're going hunting."

* * *

 **Holy crap, this thing took longer to write than I thought it would! I was originally going to make this a single chapter, but I feel that it has enough content in it to let it stand on its own. I've already written up a lot of the next chapter, so it should be up at least a little bit sooner than it took to finish this chapter. (Key word here being _should_.)**

 **Also, I have updated the last couple of chapters, including a nice little nod to a certain Youtube fight...**

 **I don't think that there's really enough gore in this to warrant a Mature rating, especially considering that I do put warnings up whenever I get detailed. Plus, there is the fact that I literally got the idea for Yang's finishing move from Mortal Kombat, so yeah, there's that.**

 **Once again, thank you for the reviews; keep 'em coming! If you have an idea for this story, spotted a grammatical error, have constructive criticism, have a question for me, or just want to say that you like the story, go ahead and say it! If you dislike it, just tell me why.**

 **Now to answer some of you guys' questions:**

 **Guest: It would be spoiling things to say whether or not the Protoss are going to appear, but it's a pretty fair bet that Yang's not going to be using psi-blades, as awesome as that would be.**

 **The Joining: Woah, thanks for the ideas! Keep 'em coming! If you have any ideas for things like Evolution Missions or just new upgrades for the zerg, go ahead and say 'em in a review or send me a PM!**

 **Guest: Integrating elemental properties into the zerg is indeed something that I'm going to do; I'm also taking quite a bit of inspiration from other sources already; as the story progresses, you'll be seeing those influences more.**

 **Guest: Ha, ha, ha! None can stop Yang and the adorableness of the zerg!**

 **HolyKnight5: ... I like the way you think, good sir/ma'am. I'm _definitely_ going to be using this review as a basis for ideas, especially with how Taiyang and Qrow react to Yang's disappearance. If you want to talk with me more, just PM me.**

 **Edboy4926: The rest of Team RWBY will not be converted to the Swarm; however, Weiss is definitely going to play a part in this story.**

 **The Insanity of a Rambling Mind: Does this chapter answer your question? (As a side note, Yang is going to evolve more as the story goes on; the modifications Abathur made here were made under a strict 'budget', so he's definitely going to want to improve his designs later.)**

 **Phantomraindance: Well, I'm trying to right Yang as a mix of being bitter about what happened to her and still having her old personality. I guess that it remains to be seen how well I pull that off.**

 **Pokeman1280: Don't worry, I'm not going to have Yang lose herself. She's definitely going to be a good deal more ruthless than she is in canon, but she certainly won't have her team killed!**

 **Rambler: Hm, I might incorporate a few draconic traits. I'm definitely going to have some Grimm traits be absorbed into the Swarm-it just isn't the zerg way to leave perfectly good adaptations just lying around!**

 **Deadrich18: Shhh, you'll spoil the surprise! And Yang's zerg makeover is definitely going to be impressive, don't you worry.**

 **5 Coloured Walker: I'll take your advice into account. Also, yes, Aura and psionics are being treated as the same thing here.**

 **Abrams 1559: Well, not _all_ of Remnant will be against Yang, but _most_ of it definitely will be. As for your request to see Infestors and Defilers, perhaps, although Infestors don't really seem to me like Yang's style.**

 **Korrd: I'm not saying that Ruby left Yang out of malice. I'm saying that she got really, really screwed over. There's a difference.**

 **Nuthenry2: Oh don't you worry, Abathur's going to have a freaking field day when he finds out what those strange sequences he found in Yang's genetics do...**

 **Magisking: Well, I've gone back and reworked the Drones' dialogue to fit your suggestion a bit better. I kind of imagine them as talking kind of like a prerecorded message-there's at least some intellect in there, but there's no actual emotion in their tone. Plus, if I were the Overmind, I would definitely want Drones to be at least intelligent enough to understand complex orders; considering the crazy shit people can pull of with microing and macroing and all of that jazz, they would have to be.**

 **Note (10/7/17): Added some more details to various sections.**


	5. A Notice

**To My Viewers:**

 **I'm still working on the next chapter of this story, but it will be a short time before it will be finished-I finished an earlier version of it a while ago, but I just wasn't happy with it and redid the whole thing based on an idea that DeadRich18 proposed. In the meantime, however, I wanted to give you guys some news.**

 **First, I'm starting to upload chapters of this story onto my deviantArt page ( .com). The comments system there is much easier to work with than the review system on this site, so it's a lot more simple for you lovely people to leave feedback and critiques over there.**

 **Second, I wanted to ask you all something: how would you all feel if I set up an Ask story (Or whatever the right term is) in accompaniment to this one where you guys and girls ask the characters questions? The only characters available for questioning at first would be Abathur and Yang, maybe the Queen; overly lewd questions, and ones that break the fourth wall or require knowledge that the recipients of the questions don't have will not be answered, but I will try to answer all the questions I can. I'll probably upload it onto dA, as the format for this site isn't really well-suited for something like this.**

 **And third, I wanted to thank Ryuzaki 007-he's been a big help with proofreading the story and working out kinks in the plot. Thanks again, dude!**

 **Yours truly from the Swarm,**

 **Glarn Boudin**


	6. Top of the Food Chain

**Chapter 5: Top of the Food Chain**

 **Warning: this chapter contains frankly ridiculous amounts of over-the-top violence in the form of brutal, bloody combat - monsters of all shapes and sizes tearing each other to shreds. Which is _AWESOME!_**

* * *

 **Approximately 2.5 miles away...**

The Beowolves' hate-fueled brains were simple ones. They wandered the forest with their packmates, constantly on the prowl for humans. When they encountered humans, they attacked, trying to cause as much emotional distress as possible, not striking to do damage so much as to inflict pain. They had no grandiose motivations for doing so-they were to hate the humans, so they hated humans. They were to kill humans, so they killed humans. That was the way things were; it was how they had always been, and as far as the wolf-like creatures of Grimm were concerned, how they always would be.

Now, though, the canine monsters' simple minds, for the first time in their collective memory, were at a loss. What the hell had just happened?

Three Beowolves, not from the Alpha's pack of twelve, had just arrived in the pack's lair, a large cave dug into the side of a hill. They were all badly wounded: multiple deep, bleeding bite and claw marks crisscrossed their bodies; large chunks of their armor had been torn clean off, revealing their ashen grey skin; and one dragged its hind leg behind it, the tendons slashed and rendering the limb useless.

Less than an hour earlier, they and the rest of their pack, a particularly strong group with not one, but _three_ Alphas, had been prowling the forest like normal when they suddenly sensed a human that was practically _dripping_ with negative emotions. Better yet, it was alone and didn't seem to be moving.

Hardly believing their luck, the wolf creatures had stalked their quarry as they normally would-an easy task, given that the human was apparently moving deeper into the forest before they lost its scent. Howling eagerly to stir up more negative emotions in their prey, the creatures of Grimm closed in on the clearing that they had last sensed the human in, slavering in anticipation of the upcoming feast. When the shadowy monsters entered the clearing itself, however, they found something unlike anything that they had ever seen before.

The human was standing at the edge of what looked like a carpet of grey slime, which covered most of the ground in the clearing. Several enormous objects stood behind it, some shaped vaguely like human buildings, others like enormous organs, but the Grimm had paid little attention to them other than a cursory glance-destroying whatever the humans built was the job of Ursae and Boarbatusks. It was the human itself that held their attention.

It hadn't given off even a twinge of fear when it caught sight the Beowolf pack, despite the fact that it was outnumbered and clearly wounded, if its missing right arm was any indication. In fact, it wasn't emitting any emotions _at all_ -it was as if the Grimm were looking at a corpse. Nine lizard-like creatures with the features of insects gathered around the human, glaring at the pack; like it, they didn't give off any negative emotions whatsoever, their glowing eyes squarely fixated on the shadowy monsters.

Every member of the pack had felt strangely chilled for a moment, despite their thick fur, but they had ignored the sensation. A human was a human, and it was still outnumbered-it would fall like any other member of its kind. The lead Alpha gave the signal to attack, and the group of Beowolves charged towards their prey-

And then all hell broke loose.

Immediately, the insect-lizards literally _leapt_ into action, each one springing over the human's head in a single enormous bound and charging towards the Grimm with incredible speed. The shadowy wolf-beasts were at first confused by these new enemies, but they moved to intercept them none the less. The strange creatures were each less than half the size of an individual Beowolf; what harm could they possibly do?

Oh, how wrong they had been.

The lizard beasts easily dodged out of the way of the larger creatures' claw swipes, their talons and fangs ripping through the canine creatures' flesh as if it were wet paper. They slashed at tendons, sending Beowolves toppling to the ground, and quickly found chinks in the Grimms' armor, plunging their claws into these gaps and peeling off bony plates with ease in order to more easily tear into the soft grey flesh underneath. One of the Alphas was dead within seconds of engagement, its throat torn out and devoured. Another Alpha had managed to sneak around the murderous creatures, finding and attacking a creature that looked like a Deathstalker with no armor or stinger and webbed wings instead of legs-it was delighted to find that this creature, at the very least, felt pain, its screams of pain deliciously satisfying to the dark beast.

Charging towards the Alpha Beowolf at speeds far greater than any other human that they had seen before, the golden-haired human had slammed into the much larger Grimm with the force of a charging Ursa Major and then proceeded to tear into it with incredible savagery, fighting like a demon uncaged before ripping its throat out. As the human cried out in victory, the last surviving Beowolves had felt that same chill again; this time, they smelled a familiar odor about themselves, and realized what the feeling was.

For the first time in their collective lives, they had felt _fear_.

Turning and running, only a handful of the wolf monsters had managed to escape the slaughter; they fled to the sounds of the lizard-monsters screeching victoriously. Now, the small group of survivors limped through the forest, all bearing serious wounds from their encounter. Where were they going? What were they going to do when they got there? These questions were beyond the lycanthropic creatures' simple minds-the only thought going through their armored skulls was the overwhelming instinct to flee, to get as far away from their strange enemies as they possibly could. For the first time ever, _they_ had been the prey, and the experience terrified them. That feeling of fear was the only thought going through the Grimm's simple minds, pushing aside the pain from their wounds, the sensation of their blood dripping onto the cold, hard ground… and any concerns that they might have been followed.

* * *

With the stealthiness of a cat, Yang slunk through the frozen woods, keeping her head down and sticking to the ever-growing shadows of the trees around her as the sun sank down towards the horizon. Zerg or not, she was still a Huntress; her training from Signal and Beacon, as well as the help she had gotten from Blake, was practically second nature by now. Keep to the shadows, remain as calm as possible, and make as little noise as she could-these three lessons repeated themselves again and again in Yang's mind as she moved through the wintery forest. The encroaching dusk didn't bother the infested human in the slightest; to her newly-upgraded eyes, the twilit woods were bright as day.

The Huntress looked down at her newly-regrown arm again and smiled. After all those months of self-pity and despair, she finally had her arm again; she could finally fight back. And unlike her last confrontation with Cinder and her cronies, the blonde brawler had an entire _army_ at her beck and call.

Speaking of which, Yang gave her forces a quick once-over. All around her, the zerg crawled, stalked, and slithered, their movements just as quiet as those of their queen-the firestarter had to admit, it was somewhat unnerving to see creatures as large as the Roaches or the Queen making so little sound as they moved. The reptilian snouts of ten Zerglings (She had left the rest of the pack, as well as two Roaches and two Hydralisks, back at the hive cluster in case of another Grimm attack) were held to the ground, nostrils twitching and their acute senses of smell guiding them along the blood trails left by the stragglers from the Beowolf pack's unsuccessful attack on her hive cluster. Their trail wasn't hard to follow; Yang hadn't paid much attention to Professor Port's long-winded ramblings of his glory days at Beacon, but she _had_ read through the section of her textbook on following tracks and blood trails. The acute senses of the zerg, however, could easily pick up the Grimm's trail again whenever it seemed to have vanished: her impressively-moustached professor would have no doubt given an arm and a leg for such a skill.

In the meantime, a pair of serpentine Hydralisks slithered around the edges of the makeshift war party, their slit-pupiled eyes intently scanning the surrounding area for potential threats, while two heavily-armored Roaches flanked the Queen near the back, their somewhat slow pace matching that of the larger creature.

Speaking of which…

 _"My Queen, I… I know that it is not my place to question your orders, but… what exactly_ is _it that are we hunting, and why?"_ The zerg organism asked telepathically-this time, there was at least a hint of curiosity in its tone, as well as a small amount of apprehension. _"Are we to acquire its essence for Abathur? Eliminate it before it can compete with our hive cluster for resources?"_

Hmm. Perhaps the Queen was more independent than she let on.

 _We are hunting a kind of creature called a Beowolf, Queen._ Yang replied. _A black furry monster that looks like a hybrid between a wolf and a human, with plates of bony armor on its back and head. As for_ why _we're hunting it, a pack of them attacked our hive cluster just before I ordered you to be spawned. The Zerglings tore them apart, but some of them ran off. We're hunting the stragglers down and finishing the job._

 _"Understood, My Queen. None who stand against the Swarm shall live!"_ Aaand back to the monotone, it seemed-despite the nature of her declaration, the Queen still sounded like a prerecorded message rather than an actual personality. Yang made a mental note to ask Abathur about it, maybe have him look into increasing the intelligence of her Queens.

Suddenly, the Zerglings situated at the front of the group came to a sharp halt and hunkered down to the ground behind a stand of evergreen bushes, with the smallest one giving a short, sharp hiss to alert its queen; they had found the rest of the Grimm. Yang immediately crouched down, gesturing for her taller zerg to do the same, and joined her 'hounds' behind the stand of shrubbery. She grinned to herself at what she saw.

Eleven Beowolves and one Alpha, the latter standing at about eight feet in height, were trudging through the woods in front of the hunting party, all of them suffering from quite serious wounds. The bite and claw marks of the Zerglings still leaked blood onto the icy ground, and several of the Grimm were missing portions of their bony armor, the delicate grey skin underneath torn open and leaking even more vital fluids. One or two were actually limping, the Achilles tendons on their hind legs cleanly severed and the useless limbs dragging along on the ground behind the hobbled monsters as they shuffled along on all fours.

 _Perfect; we found the stragglers, and they have no idea that we're here._ The firestarter thought to herself, glancing around the woods as the gears in her head started to turn. After a few seconds of thought, she turned back towards her forces and telepathically relayed their orders to them.

 _Roaches, burrow underneath the Grimm in the back and take them down. I want all Hydralisk and Queen fire to focus on the healthier-looking ones and on any that try to make a run for it; the Zerglings and I will take care of the rest. We attack on the count of three._

 _One…_

The Hydralisks brandished their claws, the thousands of quills on their backs rising like the hackles of a dog, while the Queen raised its limbs, spines ready to fire.

 _Two…_

The Zerglings fanned out and quietly circled around the Beowolves, darting through the shadows and sticking to the cover provided by trees, bushes, and rocks as they crept towards their prey, ready to strike. At the same time, the Roaches' forelegs and claws tore deep furrows into the earth, their large shelled bodies disappearing beneath the ground within seconds; a faint bulge in the ground was the only sign of the burrowing monsters' presence as they cruised towards the stragglers like land-going sharks. Yang herself flicked her wrists; at once, her hands encased themselves in armor plating and vicious talons sprouted from her fingers.

 _…Three._ Time to raise hell.

Immediately, the ground exploded right behind two Beowolves near the back of the group as the Roaches burst from the ground in twin sprays of dirt and gravel. The zerg's armored bodies slammed into the lycanthropic monsters, their enormous pincers plunging into the Grimm's furry hides, ripping and piercing it as easily as they had torn through earth and stone. Sprays of purple acid flew from the insectoid monsters' mouths, and the wolf-beasts howled in agony as the toxic compounds began eating through their fur, hides, and flesh at an incredible rate.

The rest of the pack, hearing their comrades' dying screams and the gurgles of the Roaches, immediately tried to scatter, but they were almost instantly cut off as the Zerglings leapt out of cover, charging from all sides and screeching like demons. Within seconds, the slaughter had begun.

Hydralisk and Queen spines whistled through the air from behind the treeline, the organic projectiles finding their mark almost every time. One Beowolf was killed instantly as a quill pierced its eye, burying itself in its brain, while other members of the pack howled in pain as the bony projectiles tore through them, puncturing hide, fur, and bony armor with ease. One Beowolf managed to avoid the initial volley of spines, bounding into the woods, but its path was quickly blocked by a Hydralisk. The wolf-like Grimm snarled at the obstructing alien and reared up onto its hind legs to attack, but before it could even raise a claw towards the monster, its intestines suddenly found themselves on the outside of its body with but a single flick of the Hydralisk's scythe-like claws. As the Beowolf slumped to the ground, whimpering in pain, the snakelike monster loomed over it, hissing menacingly as it brought its blades down again and again on its opponent, reducing the unlucky Grimm to nothing more than a pile of slowly-dissolving gore and severed limbs within seconds.

The Zerglings, on the other hand, were in the thick of combat, snarling and cackling as their razor-sharp claw blades ripped through their opponents' flesh. This time, the Beowolves were wise to the zerg's tricks, actually managing to inflict several serious wounds on the attacking aliens with their razor-sharp claws, but they were relatively few and far between compared to the vicious blows of their attackers. The lizard-like monsters plunged their claws into still-open wounds and pulled them open even more, sliced off clawed fingers, toes, and tails with their bladed limbs, and sank their razor-sharp teeth into their opponents' furry hides, biting off chunks of meat like giant reptilian piranhas.

And then there was Yang.

The blonde brawler had been at the forefront of her Zerglings' charge, slamming shoulder-first into the closest Beowolf and slashing her claws across its throat before it could even snarl in shock. Using the monster's falling corpse as a springboard, the firebrand leapt into the thick of the Grimm and started swinging, the _thumps_ of chitin-plated fists slamming into shadowy flesh and the wolf monsters' yelps of pain practically music to the blonde brawler's ears as she tore through the dark-furred lupine creatures. Sending one Beowolf flying with a vicious uppercut, Yang nailed another of the canine monsters squarely in the abdomen, following up her initial strike with a backhand to the face that sent a spiderweb of cracks across the monster's bony helmet-like armor. Adrenaline rushing through her veins, Yang grabbed the wounded Grimm roughly by the ears with both hands and yanked its head down, swinging her leg upwards at the same time and smashing the shadowy beast's skull-like face against her kneecap, its bone-plated head cracking open like an egg with a loud _krrracck!_ The blonde brawler let out a wordless whoop of murderous joy as the jet-black monster slumped to the ground, the pulverized mush that was its face moments ago trickling from its caved-in cranium onto the snowy soil; after all these months of lying in bed, she was _finally_ kicking ass again!

The Alpha Beowolf, finally snapping out of its shock at the ambush, let out a primal roar of fury in response to Yang's cry, snatching a passing Zergling off the ground and sinking its jagged fangs into the lizard-like hide of its neck, tearing out a huge chunk of flesh from the alien's throat before chucking the body like a ragdoll into the trunk of a tree, where it connected with a wet _crunch_. As the reptilian corpse slumped to the ground, leaving behind a long stain of blood as it slid down the side of the tree, the lycanthropic beast threw back its skeletal head and howled to the evening sky, then charged towards one of the Roaches and began slashing wildly at the armored zerg in a frenzy of razor-sharp claws; judging from the almost palpable desperation in the cry, there was no doubt in the infested human's mind that it was trying to summon more Grimm to its location. Well, if reinforcements were inbound, then there was no time like the present to start testing her new abilities.

Sending the Beowolf in front of her flying with a mighty punch square in the chest, Yang turned to the enormous Grimm, which was actually managing to do quite a bit of damage to the Roach, ripping and slashing at the zerg's chitin shell and ignoring the insectoid creature's attempts to fight back as it snapped at the shadowy canine beast's ankles.

"Hey, you! Fleabag!" She shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth. "Over here, ya overgrown mutt!"

Snarling with rage, the Alpha shoved its wounded opponent away and turned to face the infested human, its hackles raised and its furious glare promising a slow, agonizing death.

Yang just smirked at the display. "Alright, then, Fluffy; got your attention." She grinned. "Now let's dance." With that, the blonde brawler raised her right arm and punched the air before her, willing the built-in weapon within to activate.

Immediately, a 2-inch-long shard of bone shaped like a tiny crossbow bolt flew from the 'barrel' on her wrist with a faint _schick_ , whistling through the air as it streaked towards its target. The large Beowolf yowled in pain as the projectile punctured its armored right shoulder, punching through the monster's bony armor and embedding itself deep within its shadowy flesh, a not-insignificant stream of blood trickling out from around the wound and staining the white snow beneath the Grimm's clawed feet a deep crimson.

"So _that's_ what they do." Yang muttered to herself before raising her other arm, punching the air again and willing the dart to fire once more. At once, another bony dart flew from her forearm with an identical _schick_ to the first. This time, the jagged projectile buried itself in the Alpha Beowolf's chest, piercing a rib-like armor piece nearly dead center and earning another agonized cry from the shadowy canine creature.

 **"Bonebolt. Compressed, compacted version of Hydralisk spines. Armor-piercing capabilities unexpected, but acceptable."** Abathur psychically rumbled, his interest clearly piqued by the wounded creature in front of his queen. **"Specimen Alpha Beowolf contains potent essence. Must collect for use of Swarm."**

 _Don't you worry your spidery little head, Abathur._ The blonde messaged back, slowly advancing towards the giant Grimm with a manic grin on her face. _I'm not about to let it get away._ The Beowolf's ears flattened against its skull-like head as it growled at its smaller opponent, but the display didn't faze the Huntress in the slightest; the wolf monster was cornered, and they both knew it.

Yang grinned savagely at the 10-foot-tall Grimm, sharp teeth gleaming in the dying light, and activated her Semblance, her hair bursting into flame and bathing the clearing in flickering golden light. She took another step towards the monster, the sheer heat coming off of her melting the snow in a circle around her boot, then another… and then she leapt towards the Grimm, a wordless battle cry tearing itself free from her throat. For the first time in the age-old struggle between human and Grimm, the predator had truly become the prey.

The blonde brawler impacted the Alpha Beowolf with a solid punch to the chest that had her entire body weight behind it, breaking several of its already-damaged rib pieces and eliciting a breathless yelp of pain from her opponent as the air was forced out of its lungs. Ducking underneath a massive claw as it swung towards her head, Yang immediately followed up her strike with a sharp uppercut to the Grimm's jaw, sending a few of the beast's razor-sharp fangs flying with the sheer force of the punch and knocking the wolf monster back several dozen feet. Closing the newly-formed gap between her and the Grimm with another powerful leap, the blonde firestarter's claws whistled through the air as she slashed at her dark-furred opponent again and again, each blow ripping and tearing through the Beowolf's thick hide with ease. Finally, her barrage of claw strikes ended with a devastating right hook to the dark beast's left side, shattering several of its ribs with an audible crack and forcing the splintered pieces into their surrounding flesh. With an agonized roar of complete and utter contempt, the Beowolf desperately lunged towards the firebrand, jaws agape, only for the infested human to easily sidestep and deliver a hammer-like punch to the face, causing thousands of cracks to spiderweb across umbral wolf-beast's armored head.

Before the monster could cry out in agony, Yang grabbed the monstrous Grimm by the wrists, actually drawing a small amount of blood as her iron grip forced her claws to dig into the Beowolf's furred hide. The blonde firebrand's lilac eyes bored into the Grimm's orange-red ones, and she flashed a razor-toothed grin to it.

"Looks like you're about to be… _disarmed_." She quipped. With that, the zerg queen's grip tightened even more, further increasing the blood flow from her captive's wrists, and she _pulled_ ; with a wet tearing sound, the shadowy beast's arms were torn free from its body and tossed aside, hot blood streaming out of the twin shoulder stumps like a pair of miniature geysers. The Alpha Beowolf screamed in pain, but before it could even finish its agonized yowl, blood-stained claws swiped across its throat, slicing open its jugular like wet paper and painting the blonde brawler's armor-plated hand an even brighter shade of crimson. The sheer force behind the slash pushing it backwards, the wolf-monster fell to the ground with an almighty _thud_ , faintly gurgling for a few seconds as it choked on its own blood before the red light in its eyes finally winked out.

Yang let out a wordless howl of victory as she slammed her knuckles together, relishing in the beautiful sound of armor-clad fist meeting fist that she had missed for so long. "Hell yeah!" She shouted to the evening sky, adrenaline roaring through her veins. "Yang Xiao Long is _back_ , baby, and she's kicking ass and taking names!"

A quick look around the area was all the blonde firebrand needed to know that the battle was over: her Zerglings, now numbering eleven, were just now clambering off of the body of the last Beowolf, its slowly-dissolving black fur riddled with gaping wounds and broken chunks of armor, the Roaches were milling about in the middle of the battleground, and the pair of Hydralisks had slithered out from their cover in the treeline to investigate the carnage, sniffing around at the blood-soaked corpses.

Retracting her claws and tapping back into the Hive Mind, Yang mentally reached out to her Drones. _Alright, listen up!_ She messaged. _I've got a big pile of Grimm for you guys to pick up. Be quick about getting here, though; they're going to dissolve pretty soon-_

 **"Alert. Multiple unidentified lifeforms detected. Approaching forces from northeast."** Abathur's disembodied voice suddenly warned, cutting off his queen's message. **"Detection not recommended. Proposed plan: take cover. Evaluate threat."**

"Crap." Yang muttered to herself. Apparently, the noise of her fight had gotten somebody's attention; she couldn't afford to be discovered yet! _Hang on; all Drones, forget what I just said and stay back for now. Everything with me, something's coming towards us and we can't let ourselves be seen. Hide,_ now!

As soon as the order had been given, the blonde brawler dove behind a nearby bush; as she did so, the Hydralisks' claws tore into the earth like pickaxes as they submerged themselves underneath the soil, quickly being followed by the Roach pair, the Queen, and a couple of Zerglings, while the rest of the latter creatures leapt upwards into the trees, fluttering their four wings like insects and they did so and quickly concealing themselves among the branches.

Abathur's warning had come just in time: within moments of her last unit concealing itself, several different voices reached Yang's ears, growing louder as they drew closer.

"Heard something over there!"

"Sounded like Grimm; Beowolves, if the howl's anything to go by."

"Well, move your asses, then; if someone's over there, we've gotta get to them before the mutts do!"

At last, a group of four Faunus emerged from the bushes; all of them were clad in black-and-white plates of armor, with similarly-colored skull-like masks covering their faces. Yang bit back a growl at the sight, her eyes momentarily flashing bright red in fury.

 _White Fang._ Of course the bastards had relocated to Patch as well. The blonde firebrand was sorely tempted to leap into the thick of the terrorists and start cracking skulls right then and there, but she repressed the urge.

 _Gotta calm down, gotta keep my cool._ Yang thought to herself, closing her eyes for a moment and taking deep breaths in an attempt to rein in her internal cries for bloodshed. _I need to put a plan together before I do anything I might regret._ As much as she wanted to rip the Faunus a new one, she couldn't just blindly charge in-the last time the blonde powerhouse had tried that, she had lost her right arm. She needed to be cautious about this for once.

After taking a few more breaths, Yang peered out from her leafy cover again, looking up at the shadowy shapes huddled in the trees above her, then towards the ground where monsters lay in weight. The Faunus didn't know they were there, she thought to herself. Their guard was down; they would never expect an ambush. All that the blonde brawler needed to do was give the word to spring the trap, and the zerg would fall upon the masked terrorists like wolves among sheep; they would never see them coming. All she had to do was just give that simple little telepathic command, and she could start carrying out her revenge.

Despite not feeling the effect of the cold weather around her, a small shiver slithered its way down the firebrand's spine at the realization. This was it; the point of no return. Her family would be surprised, maybe a little freaked out at first, but they would probably have ultimately gotten over the announcement of her new hive cluster; the fact that Abathur had given her back her arm would definitely have put the zerg in their good graces. But killing White Fang members; killing _people?_ That was a different matter entirely. Ruby's face, frozen in a look of disgust and horror, momentarily appeared in Yang's mind's eye; if she went through with what she was starting to seriously consider, then she'd have let herself sink down to the level of these thugs.

 _I'll become another monster; just another threat that needs to be put down._

The golden-haired powerhouse shook her head and gave a quiet sarcastic snicker at that, her body temperature beginning to rise along with her anger as months-old memories began to resurface: memories of the boos and jeers from the crowd as she was led out of the Amity Colosseum, surrounded by guards and handcuffed as if she were a convict being led to the noose; Vale burning as Grimm and White Fang alike rampaged through the streets; the disapproving eyes of Ironwood, Ozpin, Uncle Qrow, even Blake, the one person that she thought would be able to relate to being framed, the one person she thought she could _trust_. As far as Remnant was concerned, Yang was already a monster-all that the pact with the Successor had done was seal the deal. Even if it weren't for the zerg and the firebrand recovered from her loss by herself, her life was still effectively over: nobody in their right mind would ever want to employ the crippled Huntress who had spit in the face of a worldwide icon of peace.

Yang grinned maliciously; a savage smile that was half leer and all teeth. If all the world would ever see her as was a monster, then perhaps it was time to start acting the part.

 _Abathur, get ready for some new essence to study._ The blonde brawler telepathically ordered, her tone icy and her eyes starting to glow red once more. _I think it's about time that you got… an_ inside _look at who we're going to be fighting against._ She didn't wait to see if Abathur had reacted to her morbid pun as she reached out to her surrounding forces, relaying her orders to the assembled zerg beasts.

Meanwhile, the White Fang patrol was cautiously moving through the trees, their weapons raised and their keen eyes peering through the twilight gloom of the forest, scanning for potential threats, until they came to a stop at the sight of the slaughtered Beowolf pack.

"Well, looks like we found the source of the commotion." A fox-eared Faunus with fiery red shoulder-length hair joked, earning a solid punch in the shoulder from one of his fellows, a brunette woman with a pair of tiny deer antlers on her head and a rifle cradled in one arm, the power behind the blow nearly causing him to drop the mace he was wielding.

"No shit, genius." The antlered woman growled. "Least the damn things aren't our problem anymore. Course, our problem now is finding whoever or whatever did this to them." All around her, Zerglings silently crept through the branches overhead, forming a ring above the grunts' heads as they regarded the beings below them with cold, predatory eyes, awaiting the signal from their queen. They would not receive it yet; Yang was listening intently from behind her cover, hanging on to every word they said. She had been out of commission for months; any information she could get on the state of the world was welcome. Even monsters needed to catch up on current events.

"Not sure if that's a good idea, ma'am. I mean, look at this; these things were cut to friggin' _pieces_." A tall, heavyset walrus-tusked grunt with an impressive mustache of long greasy whiskers muttered, poking at the armless Alpha Beowolf corpse with the serrated tip of his spear. Below his feet, the earth shifted ever so slightly as the two Roaches buried beneath the earth began to move, putting their submerged selves between the Faunus scouts and the direction that they had come from.

"Heh, it kinda reminds me of the Boss' work." A fourth soldier carrying a longsword chuckled, his thin canine tail wagging. "Remember that blonde chick a couple a' months ago?"

"The bimbo the traitor was palling around with? Ohoho, yeah, she went down like a ton of bricks!" A fifth soldier with the twisted hands of a chameleon hefting a shotgun with the blades of a battleaxe attached laughed with a harsh, raspy voice. The rest of the group joined their companion in quiet mirth at the memory, never noticing the faint snarl that sounded from the bushes at the remark.

"Shame we couldn't get the rest of her friends, though." The tusked grunt grumbled, testing the tip of his spear on his thumb and jabbing the weapon at an imaginary foe. "Would've been nice to hear the Schnee whelp's screams."

"Ah, lighten up, man." The fox-featured extremist responded, giving his larger companion a friendly slap on the back. "Atlas will be ours soon; then the Schnee family will be ours to play around with."

 _Crap._ Yang thought to herself. From what she had seen of Atlas' weapons during the fight at Beacon and heard from Weiss, the Schnee heiress' home kingdom was ridiculously well-defended. Things were not looking good if these soldiers were talking about the place as if capturing it was a foregone conclusion.

The bigger man smiled maliciously. "Good. Showing the traitor her team's heads will be worth the wait. Reckon the red-haired one'll scream real good?"

"Oh, definitely." The first soldier cackled. "As soon as she sees the bimbo's hair up on the boss' mantlepiece, she'll be squealing like a stuck pig before Lady Cinder even gets started on breaking her!"

That did it; any scrap of willpower Yang was using to keep herself from lunging out evaporated as the blonde brawler's anger flared like a miniature supernova, her world turning a brilliant shade of scarlet as the White Fang goons' laughter reached her ears. Touching her hair was already asking for a beating, yes but nobody, _**nobody**_ threatened Ruby in front of her and walked away with all of their limbs. With a furious growl, the blonde brawler clenched her fist and raised her right arm, preparing to launch a Bonebolt towards the red-headed grunt…

 _-No not enough I need more power need more fire need to blast need to **BURN** -_

Without thinking, the Huntress unclenched her fist, opened her hand, keeping her fingers curved and her palm pointed at the Faunus goon, and focused, reaching deep down within herself and calling upon her innate stores of Aura. Almost immediately, tiny golden embers flickered into existence at the tips of the blonde powerhouse's fingers, dancing down her digits and coming together to form a tiny thimble-sized sphere floating just above the palm of her hand; at first, the sparks trickled down in ones or twos, but the trickle soon strengthened a flow, dozens of motes of Aura quickly converging within the blonde brawler's palm to create a roiling ball of golden flames about the size of a baseball.

Yang's mind reeled at the sight, but she quickly brushed aside her shock and let her body follow through with the reflexive action, relaxing her body and focusing more Aura into her hand. As soon as she did so, the individual embers gave way to form five solid streams, pouring more and more raw energy into the fiery sphere as it rapidly ballooned in size to a bit larger than her clenched fist. The blonde brawler looked down at the churning ball of energy and nodded to herself, the streams of Aura feeding into the projectile petering out-something in the back of her mind told her that this would be enough energy. Letting the subconscious instructor take over again, Yang refocused her glare towards the fox Faunus, shifted her footing into a more solid stance, and willed the ball of energy to fire.

With an explosive _bang_ , the fireball blasted forth from the palm of its creator, a tail of golden embers trailing behind it like a miniature comet as it ripped through the cold air with a barely audible whistling noise. Blasting through the bush the infested powerhouse had been hiding behind as if it wasn't even there, the fireball slammed into its masked target with an almost electrical hissing sound, crashing into the fox Faunus like a tidal wave and exploding into a blast of red-gold flames like a water balloon. The blast's shockwave tossed the fox-eared extremist back like a ragdoll, his agonized shriek filling the air as the fires burned through his armor and licked at his flesh, but he was almost immediately cut off when he finally impacted the earth once more almost a dozen feet away with a painful-sounding _thump_ , carving a sizable furrow into the ground as the masked terrorist's momentum carried him another ten feet or so farther before finally coming to a stop. The rest of the extremists, largely unscathed by the blast thanks to their Aura save for a few scorched patches of clothing, shouted in confusion to one another as they drew their weapons, pointing them at the smoking remains of the bush that the blast had come from… and the flaming-haired blonde powerhouse standing behind it.

Despite the incredible events that had just transpired, Yang kept a straight face; she could freak out over the fact that she had just _thrown a freaking fireball_ later. Right now, she would just roll with it-it was time for killing. The Huntress flashed a razor-toothed smile at the masked Faunus as she stalked forwards, her eyes glowing blood-red; the White Fang soldiers' masks may have hidden their eyes, but the zerg queen could clearly see the fear on their faces. It didn't take a psychic to know what was going through the three terrorists' minds:

 _Oh shit, she heard_ everything.

The antlered Faunus was the first to speak up. "So you're somehow back in action." She sneered and spat on the ground, a slight quiver in her voice being the only sign of fear in her tone. "Figures; you and the rest of the traitor's team just don't know when to quit. New Aura trick or not, though, we still outnumber you four-" Behind the deer Faunus, the red-headed man Yang had nailed with the fireball was slowly getting back up to his feet, groaning in pain. The woman's confidence visibly grew as she noticed her companion from the corner of her eye, standing up a bit straighter and raising her chin. "Make that five to one. Run along home, little girl." The terrorist smirked. "Maybe, just maybe, we'll give you a head start."

If the White Fang's words scared Yang, she didn't show it; the blonde brawler's slasher villain-esque grin merely grew wider still, her eyes glowing an even brighter, almost _demonic_ shade of red. "Oh, one of us is definitely outnumbered, all right." The firebrand purred, her voice practically dripping with false sweetness. With a flick of her wrists, armor plating encased her forearms once again, and blade-like talons sprang from her fingertips; the golden-haired powerhouse felt no small amount of satisfaction from the look of surprise on the terrorists' faces when the fact that she had two arms again suddenly hit them. Yang slammed her fists together, the resulting _krack_ ringing out like a gunshot. "It's just not who you'd expect."

With that, the blonde firestarter telepathically reached out to the zerg creatures clustered around her. Queen, Roach, Hydralisk, Zergling-they all knew exactly what their queen wanted them to do. All she had to do was give the command.

She gave it. _Now!_

At once, the zerg surged forth: seven Zerglings screeched their eagle-like hunting cries as they leapt down from the trees while four more of their kind erupted from the soil alongside the Roaches and Hydralisks, roaring and trilling in frenzied bloodlust. Three of the lizard-like beast sprinted towards the wounded fox-eared terrorist, falling upon him like a pack of rabid wolves; his Aura already severely depleted from Yang' fireball, the White Fang member was torn to shreds within seconds, his screams quickly being cut short when one of the zerg creatures buried its fangs into his throat; their faces stained red with still-steaming blood, the trio of zerg piled off of their victim and dashed towards the surviving Faunus, chittering and calling in bloodthirsty anticipation. Yang herself put her head down and charged towards the group of White Fang with a bestial roar, her hair glowing just as brightly as the inferno of pure undiluted _hatred_ roaring within her. The attack on the Grimm had just been a test run; this was a _real_ fight.

An advancing Roach was actually knocked back a bit as an ice Dust-infused rifle round slammed into its armored side, courtesy of the rifle-bearing deer Faunus. The insectoid creature let out a cry of pain as hairline cracks began to spread across its carapace, its dense armor unable to cope with the rapid shift to near-absolute zero, and frantically retracted its head into its shell like a giant insectoid turtle just as another bullet exploded into a blast of fire where its skull had been moments ago-had the Roach been a moment too slow, the shot would have most likely taken its head clean off.

Before the riflewoman could fire another shot towards her armored target, however, a clawed hand snatched the woman up by the back of her neck with a grip like iron while two more held the antlered extremist's arms to her sides, the razor-sharp talons on the ends of the fingers digging into the Faunus' skin and drawing a small amount of blood. Looming over the smaller being like an angry mountain, the Queen lifted the squirming and shouting deer-woman up to eye level like a sack of potatoes, one of its unoccupied claws snatching the rifle out of its captive's hands and tossing it away into the woods.

 _"For the Swarm!"_ The alien beast bellowed with uncharacteristic fury as it hefted the terrified Faunus over its head, then hurled the masked terrorist into the air with all its might, slamming the antlered woman into the earth hard enough to leave a small crater in the ground nearly a dozen feet away from where the zerg creature was standing. Weakly lifting herself up from the hole her impact had made, the riflewoman didn't even have time to stand back up before the Queen was bearing down on her again, letting out a cry of rage as it brought its spine-covered appendages to bear, letting loose a spray of razor-sharp quills at point-blank range.

A short distance off, Yang headed the charge as the rest of her forces quickly closed the gap between themselves and the remaining three Faunus. The panicking terrorists quickly opened fire upon the hoard of monsters, pumping all of the ammunition they had into the encroaching swarm in a storm of bullets and Dust rounds. One or two Zerglings fell to the ground dead, their bodies pockmarked with bullet holes, but the rest of the group kept going, the Hydralisks returning fire with their own projectiles while Yang soaked up most of the shots; the bullets fell harmlessly against the former Huntress' skin like so many raindrops, the impact of each individual shot causing a fresh spike of raw power within her body. The dog-tailed Faunus frantically swung his sword, which had reconfigured into a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bayonet, at the blonde brawler, the barrel reconfiguring into a blade just before it completed its lethal arc, inches away from Yang's temple…

Only for the firestarter's clawed hand to lunge forwards in a barely-visible blur of motion and grab hold of the tip of the blade between two armor-plated fingers, stopping the weapon's trajectory mere millimeters from her face.

The zerg queen smiled sadistically at the petrified terrorist, her grip refusing to budge even as the canine extremist frantically tried to yank the blade away with all his might. "Trying to play at being your boss?" She chirped. "Sorry, chump, but your sword skills just aren't going to _cut_ it." With that, the infested Huntress wrenched the sword out of the White Fang grunt's hands with a single swift yank, the armor plating covering her own hands allowing her to hold the weapon by the blade with no difficulty. Hefting the large sword as if it weighed nothing, Yang drew her makeshift club up behind her head like a baseball bat and swung, the crossguard connecting with the side of the former owner's head with a very satisfying _crack_ ; were it not for his Aura, the firebrand was pretty sure that the blow would have knocked the terrorist out cold. She swung again, this time hitting the masked soldier squarely in the face and breaking his nose with a wet _crunch_ ; the third swing struck him in the chest with a harsh _krack_ , putting a large dent in the canine Faunus' chestplate and sending him falling to the ground. As the extremist gasped and wheezed for breath, Yang lunged forwards, tossing the sword to the side and falling upon him in a flurry of talons and fists. The smell of blood in the air, on the ground, and on her hands filled her with a new surge of energy, pushing her to swing faster and faster, harder and harder. The dog-tailed Faunus didn't stand a chance; within minutes, he was lying in a pool of his own blood, his chest a gaping mess of pulverized gore. Picking her blood-stained self up off her prey's body, the blonde brawler sprinted towards the next two terrorists, laughing maniacally. After all these years of learning and training to fight monsters, she finally had the chance to _be_ the monster… and she was loving every second of it.

As the firebrand drew closer, one of the Roaches spat acidic bile directly into the face of the big walrus-tusked grunt, sending him crashing to the ground as he screamed and scraped at his face, only to be silenced as the claws of the Hydralisk pair tore into him, while the last remaining grunt turned tail from the corpse of a Zergling his shotgun-axe had made short work of and fled, running as fast as his legs could carry him in a mad dash for the tree line. Yang snarled in fury as the lizard Faunus sprinted away, the sheer heat coming off of her body somehow intensifying even more. _Oh, no you fucking don't!_ She had already lost six friends, her sister, her teammates, and her right arm; there was no way in _hell_ that she was losing her zerg as well! The ex-Huntress quickly raised her arm, took aim like she had so many times before with Ember Celica… and fired.

With a _schick_ and a whistle like music to Yang's ears, the Bonebolt streaked through the air and buried itself directly in the small of the White Fang soldier's back, sending him tumbling to the ground with a cry of pain as his legs gave out beneath him-by the looks of it, she'd hit his spinal cord. Her quarry subdued, the infested Huntress began to stalk towards her prey, the sheer heat coming off of her literally burning her steps into the ground.

The White Fang scrambled out of the dirt and started to crawl away from the advancing zerg queen as fast as he possibly could, his paralyzed lower body dragging behind him; before he could get very far, however, a boot planted itself squarely on the Faunus' back and pushed downwards, pinning him to the ground and holding him still.

"You aren't going anywhere." Yang snarled, roughly grabbing her captive by the back of the head and mashing his face into the cold, hard dirt before she yanked his head back up, hissing her words directly into his ear. Strangely, the masked terrorist didn't struggle at all beneath the zerg queen's boot; instead, the lizard Faunus glared up at his captor defiantly, his face twisting into a sneer.

"Y-you _bitch._ " He rasped, spitting a gob of blood at the ground. "You think that this… that this will change anything? The war with Vale is over. We won." Despite his situation, the masked extremist choked out a humorless laugh. "Pet bugs or no, we'll have our new world, even if we have to burn the old one to the ground!"

The blonde brawler did not respond at first; she merely chuckled darkly and made a 'come here' gesture with a clawed hand to the monsters all around her. At once, her forces closed in, slowly circling around the two like sharks about to go in for the kill.

"Bold words, Faunus." Yang all but purred, her hair slowly losing its shimmering glow but her eyes retaining their crimson hue. "Shame that they won't save you. Because this?" She waved a hand to the carnage all around her. "This is only the beginning." The former Huntress flashed a gallows grin to her captive; blood stained her sharpened fangs, and the firebrand knew that none of it was hers. "A shame that you won't be around to see it."

With that, Yang lifted her foot from the Faunus' back… and brought it down again on the back of his head as hard as she could, crushing the terrorist's cranium underneath her heel like an eggshell with a wet-sounding _crunch_ , killing him instantly and spattering gray matter across the cold ground. Without another word, the infested human pulled her foot free from the gory mess and contacted her Drones once again.

 _Sorry about that._ She messaged. _The pile just got bigger._

* * *

 **30 minutes later...**

Yang tossed the last chunk of dissolving Beowolf flesh into the mouth-hole of the Hatchery, wiping the blood from her hands. "Alright, looks like that's the last of it." She said to herself, turning and heading towards the Evolution Chamber.

The Drones had arrived at the kill site fairly quickly, and had set upon the dead Grimm with gusto, their new digestive upgrades making short work of the tainted meat until the gliding creatures' stomachs could hold no more, upon which Yang and the rest of the zerg creatures dragged the uneaten portions of the hunt back to the hive. This time, almost none of the biomass had dissolved, with the Dust crystals within the White Fang soldiers' weapons further adding to the haul.

Overall, every last one of the fleeing Grimm had been killed and the entire White Fang squad had been wiped out, with only four Zergling casualties and two more sustaining considerable injuries-the Hydralisks had largely avoided anything more serious than minor scratches thanks to their ranged positions, while the wounded Roach's bullet holes had quickly stopped bleeding after the fight. Her Queen-Yang really needed to give it a name or something-had practically run itself ragged regurgitating massive amounts of healing slime over the wounded zerg creature, but the blonde brawler had ordered her to stop after Abathur notified her that such extensive care was unnecessary-in the Evolution Master's words, **"Minor injuries unimportant. Zerg tissue, particularly that of Roach strain, repairs rapidly; wounds quickly healed. Organism Queen must rest. Of no use to Swarm dead."**

Speaking of Abathur, the spiderlike zerg had immediately slithered out of the Evolution Chamber when Yang, dragging the still-dissolving Alpha Beowolf carcass behind her by the ankle with one hand and carrying its torn-off limbs underneath her other arm, and the rest of the corpse-bearing zerg had entered the clearing, examining the Grimm and Faunus cadavers with keen interest: his face betrayed no emotions, but the blonde brawler could practically _taste_ the Evolution Master's internal excitement through the hive mind. Quickly tearing several chunks of flesh free from each of the bodies and snatching up a few of the grunts' weapons, the zerg scientist had then sped back to his 'lab,' for lack of a better term, to analyze the new samples: as his queen had opted to melt all of the Beowolf remains from the previous attack into biomass in order to kickstart the hive cluster's growth, this would be the first time that the Evolution Master had examined pure Grimm essence in earnest.

Yang hadn't heard so much of a peep out of Abathur during the entire time it had taken for her and the Drones to tear apart the bodies of both sides' dead and drop them off into the Hatchery. It had been a bit disconcerting at first to cannibalize the bodies of her own forces, but the blonde powerhouse had quickly gotten used to it-it did make some degree of sense, in a gross sort of way. Why let scavengers consume zerg bodies when the biomass used to spawn them could be reused? As for the White Fang grunts… the firebrand knew that she _should_ have been sickened just from handling the extremists' bodies-tearing the Faunus corpses apart in order to feed the pieces into the Hatchery _should_ have, by all accounts, caused her to lose her lunch. Try as she might, however, the blonde brawler hadn't felt the barest hint of unease dismantling the corpses; Yang didn't want to admit it, but she had felt no small amount of satisfaction tearing the already-pretty badly mangled terrorists' bodies limb from limb.

Entering the Evolution Chamber, the blonde brawler found her top scientist busily analyzing a genetic structure, plucking out bars and segments of the spectral DNA helix and examining them before replacing them, occasionally dispelling the structure to switch to a second genetic blueprint. The deceased Grimm-Drone in the central pool had been replaced by the two chunks of meat-as an afterthought, the firebrand had ordered it to be consumed while she had been coming back to the hive.

"So, Abathur," she asked. "What have you found so far? You seemed pretty eager to take a look at everything."

 **"Essence of Grimm organisms, Faunus species potent. Much potential."** The Evolution Master replied as he turned towards his queen. **"Material Dust crystal, however, far more interesting. Extensive possibilities. Of great use to Swarm."**

Yang grinned at that. "Just what I wanted to hear. What have you got so far? C'mon, lay it on me."

Abathur nodded and continued. **"Essence of Grimm organisms easy to work with. Genetic structures high similar to zerg. Reason unknown, but useful. Anatomy of organism Beowolf primarily adapted for combat. Highly developed skeletomuscular system, adrenal glands. Can implement in Zergling and Hydralisk; increase natural armor, physical strength. Natural armor plating can be integrated into hive structures; increase defensive capabilities. Innate ability to sense psionic energy: very useful. Can integrate into Zergling genome, greatly enhance tracking capabilities."**

"And the Faunus?" The firebrand asked.

 **"Essence of organisms designated 'Faunus'... unusual."** The Evolution Master reported. **"Clearly subspecies of organism Yang Xiao Long's race, but closer inspection of essence reveals multiple… oddities. Essence of organisms Yang Xiao Long and Faunus highly similar to Terran genetic material, but differences evident. Greater physical capabilities, innate psionic abilities; in many ways, analogous to protoss essence."**

"Wait, wait, wait. Hang on a second." Yang interrupted, raising a hand as if she were in class. "I'm... a little bit lost here. Psionics? Protoss? What are those?"

 **"Psionics: capacity to induce paranormal phenomena through use of the mind. Examples: projecting blasts of energy, enhancing and repairing damage to body, telepathy, telekinesis. Extremely rare in Terrans, but seemingly innate to species of organism Yang Xiao Long."** As Abathur spoke, images and sequences flashed through his queen's mind: people lifting massive objects into the air, healing their wounds, and levelling buildings with the power of their minds.

As the information trickled into Yang's mind, her face lit up in understanding. "Oh, I think I know what you mean." She said. "Here on Remnant, we call that 'Aura' - what you just describes lines up pretty well with what people here can do with it. So people from where the zerg are from generally don't have anything like that?"

 **"Correct. Relatively few psionic terrans; must undergo intense training to manifest powers. Species of organism Yang Xiao Long, however, appears to be naturally gifted with psionic power. Individual essence each displays unknown utilization of psionic ability; unprecedented in previous essence studied."**

The firebrand nodded enthusiastically. "That would be a Semblance, Abathur. It's something that you can do with your Aura or psionic energy or whatever you want to call it that's different with each individual person. My little sister's Semblance is super-speed, mine is that I get stronger each time I take damage, and my partner-well, ex-partner now-could make duplicates of herself to take hits for her." Yang's gaze morphed into a scowl momentarily at the memory of Blake before shifting back to her excited grin. "Wait, could you, I dunno, take Semblances and give them to the zerg?" The infested Huntress' eyes practically sparkled as visions of Zerglings bursting into golden flames and sporting glowing red eyes danced through her head.

The Evolution Master just shook his mushroom-like head.

 **"Conditions for presence of psionic abilities extremely specific. Slightest change will destroy all traces of psionic potential. Integration into Swarm too risky. Insufficient information to allow for proper procedure."**

"Aw, man." Yang groaned. "So, what about these protoss you mentioned?"

The Evolution Master uttered a rasping hiss that the blonde brawler supposed was the closest thing he could make to a sigh. **"Species Protoss: race of beings created by xel'naga, even older than zerg Swarm. Possess highly advanced technology, extensive skill in psionics. Unfortunately, essence incompatible with zerg DNA. Cannot assimilate."** Once again, images flashed through Yang's mind: this time, they were of tall blue-skinned mouthless beings with glowing eyes and thin tendrils growing from crests on the backs of their heads. Clad in golden armor, the 'protoss' were depicted fighting hordes of zerg with glowing blue blades of energy, elegant-looking gold ships and robots, and enormous blasts of psionic energy.

The firebrand nodded. "Alright, got it. Now what about the Dust crystals? I remember that you picked up a couple of those as well. I assume that you can do something with those, too?"

The Evolution Master nodded. **"Substance Dust crystals contain unique forms of energy. Very powerful; can potentially integrate into Swarm. Many possible uses."**

Yang nodded at the news, a crafty grin creeping onto her face as an idea came to her. "Let me guess; upgrading the Roaches is one of those things?" She snickered. "Add some red Dust to their acid, and we'll really be starting things off with a _bang!_ "

Abathur's many eyes rolled in their sockets at the joke. " **Unfortunately, pun quality improvement currently impossible."** He replied, somehow shifting his monotone voice into even more of a deadpan than usual.

"Ah, you'll warm up to me eventually, Abathur." Yang replied, playfully socking the Evolution Master in the arm as she stifled a yawn. "Oop, sorry."

The Abathur looked at his queen curiously at the sound. **"Organism Yang Xiao Long currently experiencing fatigue. Rest recommended."**

"What? Nah, I'm fine. Just a bit-* _yawn_ *-tired is all." The blonde firebrand denied, unsuccessfully trying to suppress another yawn. Abathur was right: she _was_ exhausted. Weeks of only a few fitful periods of nightmare-filled sleep combined with the strenuous activities of the day had left her drained.

 **"Correction. Organism Yang Xiao Long suffering from major fatigue. Rest _required_ \- exhaustion imminent."**

"All right, all right, Abathur, I get the picture!" Yang finally conceded, throwing her new hands into the air. "I'll get some rest, I promise. I… guess that I could use some sleep, anyway. Make sure that the hive doesn't fall apart while I'm out, alright?"

 **"Affirmative."**

The hive cluster now in the Evolution Master's capable hands… claws…. whatever they were, Yang exited the Evolution Chamber and lay down on a patch of creep next to the Hatchery, resting her head on her newly regrown right arm to keep her hair out of the grey slime. Despite the falling snow coating most of the clearing in a thin skin of frost, the blonde firestarter didn't really feel chilly-her new zerg biology kept her nice and warm, although she wouldn't turn down a blanket right about now.

As soon as the thought left Yang's mind, creep began to rise from the ground around the blonde brawler like black waves, wrapping around her body as if it were a slightly rubbery, but surprisingly warm and soft blanket. The hive's Zerglings gathered around their queen as well, some pacing around and standing guard while the rest lay down around their queen, huddling around her as if she were one of the pack. The smallest of the bunch plopped itself down right next to her, snuggling up as if it were a scaly fanged version of Zwei.

Yang smiled at the zerg creature and moved herself a bit closer to it, resting her head on its scaly body. Despite her earlier insistence that she wasn't tired, the blonde firestarter was drifting off to sleep within just a few minutes. As she slipped into slumber, one thought lingered in the Huntress' mind.

 _Time's a-ticking, Adam. I'm coming for you._

* * *

 ** _Finally_ finished this sucker! I'm sorry for such a long delay in between updates, guys: I got a job for the summer that demanded a lot of my attention, and I had a bad case of writer's block for the longest time. But it's finally here: the next chapter of Bloody Evolution! ****And so we begin Yang's gradual descent into zerghood.**

 **At first, this chapter was going to be relatively by-the-numbers, but Deadrich18's idea really sat well with me. So, I redid the entire chapter based on his suggestion, and honestly, I'm satisfied with how it's gone.**

 **As always, leave a review or send me a PM if you have any ideas for the story, a new type of zerg, have constructive criticism, or just want to say that you liked the story! It really makes my day to read your reviews!**

 **Raging Archon: I did get quite a bit of inspiration from Carbot for how the Queen behaves. She's a very interesting character to write. As for the rest of your review, well, I can't give up all my secrets, now can I? ;)**

 **.1690: Don't worry; Yang may have gotten an insectoid makeover, but she still knows who she is. She wouldn't harm Ruby.**

 **Mysterioustgexpert: Oh, it's going to be _glorious_.**

 **Guest: Yeah, Dust is going to be quite a big part of Yang's Swarm, but it's not going to be the only way they'll adapt.**

 **Pandadoesrandomstuff: There probably won't be any Leviathans in this story, no, but time will tell otherwise.**

 **A** **ahahahhahahahaha: You'll see.**

 **Akshka: You don't know the half of it. By the time Yang really starts fighting dirty, Ironwood's gonna need a stiff drink every time he hears a mission report!**

 **Eye of Sauron: Time will tell. :P I don't think that the universe is ready for two Abathurs in one place, though.**

 **LordNogrockLock648: I might have more zerg getting personalities of their own. Your review has given me some ideas... Also, I've posted a link to my dA page on my profile so that people can get to it easily. Thankfully, there's not a lot of stuff like this story to gum up searches for it, although there is that Warhammer 40K/RWBY fic that has a very similar name. Honestly, I totally forgot it existed until I had entered the name for this story.**

 **Eulaliaaaa: Great to get input from a pro Starcraft player for this story! However, there is one problem with the strategy you've described: resources. At the moment, Yang doesn't really have the necessary biomass to make a lot of Drones. Also, I'm playing a little bit loose with the game's mechanics-without limitations like how much a computer can load, I've got a lot more freedom with my ideas. Also, Dust crystals have a ridiculous amount of energy within them-pretty much all of the buildings she has now besides the Hatchery were made from the biomass granted by that collection of Dust crystals she swiped.**

 **OBSERVER01: As soon as I figure out how to implement it, let's just say that there's gonna be a whole new level of madness in the Swarm.**

 **The Insanity of a Rambling Mind: Yang's moral change is kind of a mixed bag in terms of influences-some of it's from what happened to her, some of it is due to her infestation, and some of it is bitterness at being left behind. As for how her friends will take it, I'm honestly fairly confident that Qrow at the very least is going to take this whole thing in stride.**

 **JawsOnYou67: I'm not really interested in writing any romance for Yang. Personally, I've got pretty diverse tastes in ships (Jaune and Yang is one that I've always found fun), but I'm definitely not going to have Stukov or Dehaka be the romance option. Neither one is even in this side of the galaxy, and I don't think that primal zerg can even understand stuff like love.**

 **Fainfan: Yeah, one of the things I love to do is read Abathur's lines aloud in as good of an impression of him as I can.**

 **Oh, I almost forgot! If you guys want to draw or write something based on this, go right ahead! I would love it if this story inspired you to create something of your own! Hell, I'd be honored if I got a sex-themed story based on this one!**

 **With that, this is GlarnBoudin, signing out!**


	7. Halloween Announcement

**Spooky Season Begins!**

Hello, everyone! Lediblock2/GlarnBoudin here, bringing you a very special message!

Summer's over, and it's getting colder, which means only one thing: My favorite holiday, Halloween, is just around the corner!

Now, I've done a lot in this year; I finally plucked up the courage to start publishing my stories to all of you lovely people, and you guys have been absolutely amazing in your support for me! As such, I feel like challenging myself this year, both for myself and for you lovely people. As such, I hereby declare this...

SP00KY SEASON!

What's that, you ask? What's Sp00ky Season? Well, I'll tell you; it's a season-long romp of monster-filled goodness to celebrate the scariest time of the year! I've been working in the wings on a bunch of new chapters and several all-new stories for all you guys as a gift for how amazingly supportive you lot have been for me, and 'tis the season to start to show 'em!

Here's just a few sneak previews of what I've got planned:

A Halloween Special for Bloody Evolution!

At least one new chapter for Untamable, finally revealing my mad plan!

A Sasquatch-themed short story for my deviantArt group, TheHollowWorldEnigma, filled to the brim with bayou creepiness!

A totally new story based on one of the core tenants of Halloween!

And here's the kicker; the order in which these terrors are revealed will be decided by _you_ -yes, **_YOU!_** Go to the poll on my profile and vote for what you want me to prioritize writing first!

Have a happy Halloween season-I know that I will!


	8. First Foray, pt 1

**Hey there, everybody. It's been forever and a day since I last uploaded, huh? Let's fix that.**

 **Also, this story now has a logo, thanks to Gojirahkiin! Many thanks, dude! The background is a stock image by TeapotMysteries on deviantArt; link to it is in my profile.**

* * *

The next few days passed by without much incident: nobody had gone out looking for Yang just yet, although she had gone back home to leave a note for her family when they got back, and there were no additional Grimm attacks on the hive cluster, giving the blonde brawler plenty of time to work on improving her forces.

The zerg hive mind was now maintained by no fewer than six Overlords, and half a dozen more Drones had been spawned to assist in digging for minerals. By now, the worker units had dug an impressive tunnel network going all the way down to bedrock with the help of the burrowing Roaches, excavating caches of ore and buried animal remains as they went and later digging out several large chambers at their queen's order. Yang had commanded the Drones to create a tunnel on the roof of one of these large chambers in order to connect it to the surface, then herded the Overlords inside and had the tunnel opening covered by a relatively thin layer of dirt mixed with partially solidified creep that could be easily lifted up to release the blimp-like zerg-the encounter with the White Fang grunts had left the blonde brawler more than a little paranoid about being discovered.

The hive cluster proper had also expanded; creep had now spread to cover the entire clearing, thanks to the Queen's Creep Tumors, as well as the walls and ceilings of most of the tunnels beneath the hive, and a second Spawning Pool and Hydralisk Den sat atop the material on the surface. The clearing itself had actually grown outwards by quite a bit as well-trees rooted in soil that the creep encroached on quickly died, shriveling away to practically nothing within a few hours as the zerg slime siphoned away every last nutrient within them. Most of the expansion, however, had taken place underground, with various structures being placed within the chambers that the Drones had dug out. The largest of the freshly-dug caves housed the immense form of a Hatchery, which Yang had then ordered to mutate into an even taller, more imposing structure apparently called a Lair, with a second Roach Warren tucked away into a corner. A much smaller chamber nearby housed a structure that Abathur had referred to as a Baneling Nest: a vaguely oval-shaped pulsating growth as large as an Ursa Major that came up to the former Huntress' knee in height surrounded with sticky green webbing, which in turn adhered to the legtips of a large, vaguely ovular object that hovered about ten feet in the air above the cyst-like growth. About the same size as the lump below it, the bulbous floating object sported four pairs of jointed legs on its sides, a semi-transparent light green pulsating membrane covering its back, and a single longer appendage, each one similar in shape to its side legs, hanging downwards on either end of its 'body'. When Yang had asked what the structure did, the Abathur had shown her several memories of the Baneling Nest and the titular zerg it spawned in action, destroying Terran structures with disturbing ease. Needless to say, after seeing the capabilities of the exploding creatures that the Nest turned Zerglings into, the infested powerhouse had quickly decided to put the nest that spawned them some distance away from the rest of the base as precautionary measure if something went wrong.

In terms of defense, Yang had ordered three more Spine Crawlers to be spawned, forming a perimeter around the main buildings that left no side out of reach from at least one of the bladed tentacles, while a pair of Spore Crawlers, which looked like cone-shaped towers of spiky chitin rings stacked on top of one another, now flanked the surface Hatchery, swiveling from side to side like living turrets as they endlessly watched the skies for intruders. The blonde brawler's offensive forces had also undergone significant expansion: her pack of Zerglings had expanded from twenty-two to thirty, there were now six Roaches and six Hydralisks in her little army, and another dozen Zerglings had been spawned and promptly ordered to molt into Banelings. The bloated-looked creatures barely resembled the lizard-like beasts that they had spawned from: each one of the Zerglings had ballooned in size from around the size of a large mastiff to almost as big as a Roach, with nearly all of their new mass being made up of the enormous swollen sack filled with glowing green acid that grew from the creature's back and extended behind it for another two feet or so. Several portions of the Baneling's carapace had been replaced with several smaller sacks containing similar compounds, the head had shrunk slightly and lost its horns and mandibles, and four spindly legs, each ending in a single sharp spike, held the entire creature up off the ground. The infested former Huntress was uneasy about the explosive creatures at first, but she had eventually warmed up to them once she found out how they moved around: instead of scuttling along the ground, whenever the bulbous zerg had to move quickly, the bulbous zerg tucked themselves into a ball and rolled around. Needless to say, watching the Banelings roll around the hive cluster like a horde of loose tires quickly helped the new zerg queen get over her initial anxiety concerning the rotund creatures.

And speaking of Yang, the golden powerhouse herself had spent most of her time training; the entire forest was the blonde brawler's playground as she spent hours jogging through the woods, testing her fists, talons, Bonebolts, and newly-acquired blasts of fire on boulders, trees, and any Grimm either brave or dumb enough to try their luck against her (Yang could now confidently say that Grimm most certainly did not have much in the way of brains; at one point, she had gotten jumped by no fewer than three Beowolves, two Creeps, and a young Boarbatusk over the course of a single afternoon). When she wasn't exercising or practicing with her newfound powers, the infested former Huntress was working with her zerg, training with her connection to the hive mind by running her troops through little obstacle courses that she had set up. They were fairly simple things made from rocks and fallen logs, but they got the job done for providing Yang with practice on finer control over her new subjects. Abathur was even showing her the ropes on spinning sequences. The firebrand still had a lot to learn from the Evolution Master, but the basic process had been easy enough for her to grasp after the he had explained it through his connection to the hive mind-Yang honestly had no idea how her alien 'tutor' would have convey the instructions to her otherwise. Her first creation had been quite simple, little more than a vaguely cylindrical mound of creep surrounded with a solid scab-like chitin shell to form a crude sort of pillar, but it was a start - said pillars were quickly put to use within the tunnels below the hive to brace the chambers' high ceilings. The golden firestarter had also managed to make a crude 'helmet' of sorts using Roach chitin as a base. Like the pillar, it wasn't much, basically a rough bucket shape with a pair of holes for eyes and two projections on top that kind of looked like horns if you squinted hard enough, but Abathur had been quite impressed nonetheless: he had apparently never really considered creating tools and weapons from zerg biomass, but after looking through some of his queen's memories, the Evolution Master had expressed considerable interest in trying it himself. The rapt attention Abathur had given to memory sequences that Yang showed him of her various sparring sessions at Beacon reminded the infested Huntress of the euphoric look on Ruby's face whenever she stepped into a weapons shop - when that disturbing thought passed through her mind, she had immediately made her top, and for that matter, her only, scientist promise not to experiment with anything dangerous enough to leave lasting damage if it went wrong. The path that had lead up to Crescent Rose had been a long, bumpy one, and Yang did not want the only being under her command that could provide advice for ruling the hive cluster to accidentally set off a Dust crystal and reduce the entire place to a burning crater.

Through all of this, the blonde brawler had picked up several pieces of key information:

Roaches and Hydralisks loved being scratched under the chin; Zerglings and Banelings, on the other hand, would do absolutely anything for a belly rub.

Abathur's digestive system upgrades were definitely functional; Yang had eventually worked up the stomach one day to take a couple of bites out of an Ursa that she had killed while out on a run, and nothing bad had happened to her. The Grimm's flesh wasn't that bad, either, kind of like very gamey beef; still, though, it would be a while before the golden-haired powerhouse would really get used to feeding on the dark creatures.

Her fireballs were a powerful weapon, trumping even the Ember Celica in raw firepower (Abathur had buried his spider-like face in his claws and let out the gurgling zerg equivalent of a groan when she had cracked that joke) by a long shot, but it would be quite some time before she had perfect control over it. Yang didn't really care if her meat was well-done, but to put it gently, her attempts to cook some pieces of meat that she had swiped from home with her pyrotechnics did _not_ go well. Even the _Zerglings_ wouldn't touch the lump of charcoal that had at one point been a piece of chicken, although the Hatchery hadn't complained when she had tossed the charred chunk into its maw… too much.

The blonde brawler didn't need to worry about loyalty with her zerg: it didn't matter what the orders were, the aliens immediately jumped to carry out Yang's telepathically issued orders without the thought of complaint even crossing their minds. Better yet, the firebrand's connection to the hive mind allowed the infested powerhouse's forces to perfectly understand the implications of her commands, meaning that there was no issue with using slang terms around them.

This connection to the hive mind also allowed Yang to, for lack of a better word, _possess_ individual troops when she was in 'Overseer Mode,' as the blonde firestarter had taken to calling the free-floating state that she entered whenever Abathur was making tweaks and adjustments to her physical form in the Evolution Chamber, seeing through their eyes and directly controlling their movements. The first time it had happened had been by complete accident; the infested Huntress had been boredly zooming around a sleeping Roach while the Evolution Master running an examination on the blonde brawler's body to see how well it was adapting to the Successor's mutagen when her form had suddenly been, well, _sucked_ into the dozing zerg. One moment, Yang was zipping around the insectoid creature like a little glowing planet, and the next, she was suddenly hunkered down on the ground and covered in a heavy shell. Abathur had come running (Or rather, slithering) when he heard his queen's panicked shriek, and, after figuring out what had happened, had managed to walk her through extracting her mind from the Roach body via the hive mind. After a few minutes of trying, essentially undergoing the same action that she did to get back into her physical body in her first run in 'Overseer Mode,' but in reverse, the firebrand found herself floating once more in front of a very confused Roach, and had made a mental note to practice more with this ability in the future; the idea of taking a flying zerg creature's body out for a spin was a tempting one indeed.

The hive mind also allowed Yang to access the memories of her zerg, even pause and rewind them as if they were recorded programs. What's more, while she couldn't tell exactly what each creature was thinking in these memories, the blonde brawler could still get the gist of the general emotions that the zerg in question was feeling in each of its memories-a feeling of pain when remembering an injury, for example, or a sense of complete and utter contentment overlaying a Zergling's memories of its queen giving it a belly rub.

Apparently, the Queen of Blades had had a sense of humor: one day when she had been sifting through the hive mind, Yang had found several different commands lodged within the subconsciousness of all of her zerg units, ranging from 'Stay put and attack anything that comes close' to 'dance'. Upon using the latter order on some of her Zerglings, the blonde firestarter was immediately greeted with the utterly ridiculous sight of half a dozen murderous alien beasts trying, and failing, to break-dance in a manner utterly unsuited for creatures of their body shape. It had taken her almost ten minutes to stop laughing.

Spinning sequences had seemed simple at first, but the process was much, much more complex than Yang had ever expected it to be. The closest thing that the blonde brawler could compare it to was creating a blueprint for a weapon, except instead of assembling parts and connecting wires, you were building not only the parts and wires themselves, but deciding on the very physical composition of those parts. The sheer complexity of the whole thing still made her mind reel a bit, but Abathur seemed to be specifically built for spinning the strands of genetic material as easily as he breathed-which he technically _was_ , now that Yang thought about it.

Despite the mechanical nature of her speech, Yang's Queen definitely wasn't mindless-the blonde brawler had poked around within the zerg organism's mind once out of curiosity, and she had found what she could only describe as a personality (Yang didn't know how or why she could tell that it _was_ a personality, she just could - it was hard to explain). The problem was, that personality seemed to be buried deep within the zerg creature's subconsciousness; when Yang had asked Abathur why this was so, he had just looked at her as if she had grown two additional heads.

Speaking of Abathur, the Evolution Master had also been busy during the past few days-he had been working day in and day studying the essence of the dead Grimm his queen frequently brought back to him, with the fruits of the zerg scientist's labor taking the form of sheets of thick bony armor covering previously vulnerable sections of the hive cluster's various structures. All in all, things were looking up for Yang… but a problem quickly made itself known.

* * *

"It's like they're, I don't know, getting weaker or something. C'mon, Abathur, you _have_ to know something about this!" Yang shouted, grabbing the zerg scientist by the shoulders and shaking him roughly. She was currently speaking with the zerg scientist just outside the Evolution Chamber, asking for his advice on a problem she had noticed recently. Over the last few days, the zerg of the hive cluster, particularly the ones she had first spawned, had started to... _fade_ , for lack of a better term-the predatory looks in the aliens' eyes had dulled considerably, and they were moving much less frequently and at a much slower rate. Any inquiries from their queen through the hive mind had been met with either dull confusion or a general sensation of weakness-whatever was affecting the hive cluster, it was sapping Yang's forces' will to even _think_. Her Drones seemed relatively unaffected by the events, but grilling them hadn't come up with anything more than the space-bug equivalent of a shrug-this was apparently news to them as well. And so, the infested former Huntress had turned to Abathur for help; if the designer of most of the zerg Swarm couldn't provide an answer, then nobody could.

The Evolution Master thought for a moment as he looked out over the lethargic zerg creatures lying about the hive cluster, two of his claws grabbing onto his bulbous head to stop it from flopping about like a bobblehead while a third rested on his chin - which, with the Evolution Master's strange anatomy, was really a point halfway down his chest - before replying.

 **"Combat-based zerg organisms of hive cluster experiencing hunger. Drone unit ingests small amounts of collected biomass to feed self - no such opportunity for combat-based strains. Nutrient intake in immediate future required."** He intoned; upon hearing this, the golden-haired powerhouse breathed a sigh of relief.

"So, they're just… hungry? Alright, that's simple enough, I guess." The infested Huntress said, feeling as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Now that Yang thought about it, it _did_ make a good deal of sense: her Zerglings alone undoubtedly burned a lot of calories from just running around, and from what Abathur had told her about the incredibly complex muscular systems of her other zerg, the same probably applied to the rest of her forces. The blonde brawler had seen the Zerglings grazing on leaf litter occasionally, and she herself had been snacking on pinecones and acorns these past few days, but it was pretty clear that that wasn't going to cut it - besides tasting awful, it took a huge amount of bark and vegetation for Yang to feel even remotely full. Given how large and how active her troops were, the same no doubt went triple for them. "So, how do we go about fixing it? Making extra creep for them to chow down on?"

 **"Consumption of creep not recommended."** The Evolution Master replied. **"Current supply insufficient to feed forces, support structures simultaneously. Additional problem. Biomass levels insufficient to produce additional creep."**

"Okay, that's… definitely a problem." The infested firebrand muttered, her brow furrowing in displeasure. "What do you have in mind? More rabbit hunts?" In order to try to get them to snap out of their daze, Yang had recently started taking her zerg out to scrounge up small game, with limited success; the aliens had been significantly more active during these hunts, yes, but as soon as they finished scarfing down their portions of the catch, they had just hunkered back down and gone into their zombie-like state again.

Abathur shook his mushroom-like head. **"Occasional small organisms inadequate: surrounding ecosystem unsuitable for supporting hive cluster. Recommended: attack nearby Terran settlement, consume inhabitants. Estimated biomass more than sufficient for feeding Swarm."**

"Wait, _what?!_ " Yang shouted in surprise, the Evolution Master skittering back a bit as her eyes began to glow a foreboding red. The notion of having her zerg eat Grimm had been pretty easy to get used to; hell, even killing White Fang had been simple enough to wrap her head around. But devouring innocent people? That was where she drew the line. "Listen, Abathur, we are _not_ going to be invading towns and eating people! Besides the fact that that's just… _just_ wrong, we can't afford to be discovered yet! What in Oum's name would even _give_ you that idea, anyways?!"

Abathur raised his hands in the air placatingly in the universal gesture of 'I don't know, alright?' **"Nutrient requirements of Swarm immense. Consumption of Terrans necessary for survival. Way of Swarm; raze forests, level mountains, empty seas. Strip planets of any and all resources, consume all available biomass. Feed zerg organisms, leave no resources for enemies of Swarm."**

Yang's gaze hardened, her red eyes boring into the Evolution Master's six green ones. "It isn't the Swarm's way anymore, Abathur. I need a way to feed my troops, and I needed it yesterday."

Abathur was silent for a moment before finally replying. **"Proposition. Invade Terran settlement-"**

"What did I _just_ say, Abathur?! No eating people who don't deserve it!"

 **"Terms have been acknowledged. Alteration to previous strategy: invade Terran settlement, raid food stores. Use to feed Swarm."**

Yang untensed a bit at the suggestion. "Alright, that's better." She affirmed. "We're close enough to town that we could make a quick trip there, and we could get an Overlord to tag along to carry everything." What's more, the former Huntress knew where several well-stocked grocery stores were - hell, there was even a good-sized pet store nearby that they could hit up if that didn't provide enough food. But then again, going out into town with a horde of freaky monsters trailing behind her wasn't exactly an option - at best, she'd be run out of town, at worst, she'd be shot on sight. The blonde brawler would have to go about this in a different fashion than her normal modus operandi.

Yang put her hand to her chin as a plan began to form within her mind. "...Hey, Abathur, how stealthy can zerg be when they really want to?"

* * *

 **Patch Island, town of Patch**

 **11:30 PM**

A fairly large city of almost 180,000 people, now almost quadruple that number thanks to the recent flood of refugees from Vale, the town of Patch was by far the largest settlement on the island that it had leant its name to. The place had all the amenities one would expect of such a large populated area: restaurants, night clubs, Dust shops, sturdy walls… and several dozen large, well-maintained grocery stores.

Vertégrun's Produce was one such store. The supermarket had long since closed for the night, the dim glow of the street lamps outside casting oblong shadows onto the tall shelves inside, and a heavy steel chain secured with a padlock the size of an orange was tightly wrapped around the handles of the double doors out in the front of the store. Not even a mouse stirred within the establishment, and the street in front was similarly empty; aside from the far-off barking of a dog, there wasn't the faintest sign of life in the area.

At least, not out in the open.

 _Are you alright, My Queen? Have you arrived safely at the target site?_

Yang sighed as her Queen repeated the same telepathic query that it had been asking her again and again practically every five minutes since she had left the hive cluster. The trek into town had been fairly uneventful, save for a close shave with a few town guards, but the constantly repeated question had quickly gotten on the blonde brawler's nerves.

 _For once, yes; we're here, Queen._ The firebrand messaged back, poking her head out from the alley she was hiding in to get a better look at the store. She was really starting to regret leaving the zerg creature behind at the hive cluster to keep a lid on things, but she couldn't afford to leave the hive unguarded. At the very least, this would be a good test of the alien's competence in managing things without her around.

Yang herself had taken the time to prepare for this excursion: an old travelling cloak that she had swiped from her home was draped over her shoulders, the hood drawn up over her head, and she wore a blackish-grey chitin mask that looked like an Alpha Beowolf skull - an improved version of the firebrand's earlier 'mask' creation that she had made with Abathur's help. A greenish-grey belt-like cord of tissue was wrapped around the infested powerhouse's waist, with a crude chitin scabbard hanging from it that housed a vicious serrated sword, as long as Yang's forearm and seemingly wrought from a single piece of smooth dark brown bone. Abathur had made the weapon with Yang's input from a combination of essence from a Zergling's blades, a Hydralisk's quills, and the claws of a huge zerg creature that the Evolution Master had called an Ultralisk. The blonde brawler didn't have too much skill in the usage of swords, but her sheer strength and newly-gained reflexes would hopefully serve as an adequate substitute for training. The darkness of the streets didn't bother her, either; Abathur had upgraded her eyesight using the essence of the White Fang guards she had ambushed several days ago, integrating the Faunus' inherent night vision into his queen's genetic structure. And in case all of that wasn't enough, Yang hadn't come alone; behind the former Huntress, the escort force she had brought with her of six Zerglings, a Baneling, a pair of Hydralisks, and a Roach were all clustered around a large dumpster with a gaping hole melted into its side, courtesy of the latter zerg creature's acid, gorging themselves on the refuse within. And finally, Abathur's alien form loomed over Yang as he stood behind her, his enormous mushroom-like head peeking around the alleyway just above the blonde-haired one of his queen.

 **"Concern of Queen unit appropriate. Discovery in present state not recommended."** The Evolution Master muttered, his steepled claws nervously tapping against one another.

"Relax, Abathur, it's going to be fine." Yang assured the zerg creature with a confident grin. "This shouldn't raise too many suspicions - terrorists can't do too much with produce. Besides, this was your idea, wasn't it? Why are you so jittery?" She was right - for the first time the former human had ever seen since she had spawned him, the zerg scientist looked legitimately _scared_ , every muscle in his alien body tensed and his six eyes constantly darting around the street as if he expected something to leap out at him at any given moment.

 **"Organism Abathur not designed for combat."** The Evolution Master replied uneasily, still drumming his clawed fingers against each other. **"Unsuited for urban environment. Possible death of Evolution Master equates to immense loss for Swarm. Extinction distinct-"**

Abathur's rambling monotone was cut short when Yang placed a reassuring hand on the shoulder of one of his upper arms, ignoring the soft, somewhat slimy texture of his skin. "Abathur, _relax_." The zerg queen reassured the alien, gently squeezing the Evolution Master's shoulder. "And that's an order. Nobody's going to hurt you." Her gaze hardened, and she raked the talons on her free hand against the wall she was leaning against, carving five deep gouges into the sturdy brickwork. "They'll have to deal with me first. Now come on." Yang ordered, the ravenous zerg around the dumpster looking up towards her at the command. "We've got work to do."

The blonde brawler looked up and made a 'come on' gesture to the air above her; immediately, a portion of the night sky began to move as the Overlord floating above the small posse drifted across the street and came to a stop roughly ten feet above the flat roof of the grocery store, looking rather like a strange, lumpy stormcloud - Abathur had modified the floating alien's coloration to camouflage itself against the night sky specifically for this mission. As quietly as she could, Yang followed the aerial zerg creature across the street, the rest of her impromptu escort force skittering, scurrying, and slithering right behind her. The blonde brawler scowled a bit at the thick chain over the door handles, but she didn't voice a complaint; she just drew the bone-based sword from its scabbard with her free hand and used the other to hold the chain taut. A quick swing of the blade, and the chain fell to the pavement in two pieces, the two halves of the padlock clanking like coins as they tumbled down to join it.

"Nice." The firebrand commented in a hushed, but pleased tone. She pushed the door open and entered the establishment, half-turning her head to address the rest of the zerg as they followed her in. "Alright, boys, you know what to do. Zerglings, fan out and look for the real meaty stuff, Roach and Hydras, head to the back, try and figure out where the freezers are. These places always have a behind-the-scenes storage area; we need all the food we can get. Baneling, put yourself directly underneath the Overlord and get ready to blow. Make sure that it won't get caught in the blast, and wait till I give the-"

Yang's orders were cut off as she heard deep, frustrated grunts of exertion from behind her. The blonde brawler turned her head towards the noise, and was immediately greeted with one of the strangest things she had ever seen.

Abathur, Evolution Master of the zerg Swarm and architect of the otherworldly killing machines currently surrounding the infested Huntress… was frantically tugging on the handle of a supermarket door clearly marked **PUSH** , growing visibly angrier as the door refused to swing open.

Yang couldn't help it; she snickered at the ridiculous sight, which turned into a chortle, which turned into a full-blown laugh, covering her mouth with her hands to muffle her giggles as her top scientist glared at the offending glass doors with a look that could have peeled paint.

 **"Amusement of organism Yang Xiao Long unclear."** Abathur grumbled. **"Terran structure displays obvious design flaw: entry is obstructed."**

"N-no, it's… _snicker_ … it's working, Abathur, don't worry. It's just… _hee hee hee_ … you… you can't read, can you?" The former Huntress finally managed to ask, still trying to hold back fits of chuckling.

The Evolution Master tilted his head curiously at the question. **"Negative. Literacy unnecessary for serving purpose."** He rumbled, voice slightly muffled by the glass door between the two. **"Reason for asking unclear. Not applicable to situation."**

Yang just smirked. "Well, if you could read, you'd know that _this_ …" She grabbed the handle on her side of the door and pulled it open, pointing to the writing on the glass with her free hand. "...says 'push.'"

Abathur stared at his queen in stunned silence for a few moments, his horizontally-aligned mouth hanging open in what Yang supposed was the closest he could come to his jaw dropping, before he finally managed to compose himself. **"Er… Acknowledged."** He finally replied hurriedly, quickly slithering past the infested human into the store - it didn't take a connection to the hive mind to see that if the Evolution Master were human, he would be practically glowing scarlet with embarrassment. **"Will focus on literacy later. Current task must be completed."**

The infested Huntress nodded, still chuckling a bit. "Good. After this, though, I'm teaching you to read." A sly grin crept over her face; a grin that the Evolution Master, to his chagrin, was beginning to recognize. "I think it'll really _open up_ a whole new world of possibilities for you." She cackled at Abathur's pained expression before clearing her throat, her tone serious once more. "All jokes aside, though, let's get moving. The food won't move itself."

* * *

The zerg worked quickly. The Roach and Hydralisks had quickly managed to locate the door to the freezer room, melting a hole into the door with the former creature's acid and setting about cutting down the hanging sides of beef, pork, and mutton; meanwhile, Abathur had immediately headed towards the supermarket's store of seafood and exotic meats - apparently, the zerg didn't often get access to aquatic organisms, making this a rare treat for the Evolution Master. While the mushroom-like zerg busily examined snakehead fillets and frozen octopi, Yang and the rest of the raiding party snatched up anything they could find that looked even remotely edible. Canned beans, sacks of flour and sugar, heads of broccoli, even the offal and fish heads in the trash can of the butcher's corner-everything was pushed together into one enormous pile near the center of the store, albeit with more than a few bite marks in many cases; the blonde brawler's immense strength combined with the physical might of the Roaches and Hydralisks made carrying even the heaviest items a breeze. All the while, the Baneling watched from the middle of the store, patiently awaiting its time to shine, while the Overlord hovered above the roof, its many eyes scanning the streets for any possible threats.

"Alright, this should last us a good while." Yang finally announced after about half an hour of collecting, wiping her hands on her shorts as she looked at the colossal heap of food before her; comprised of practically everything edible within the store, the pile was tall enough to just barely scrape the ceiling. "Now for the final touch."

The infested Huntress walked over to the checkout section of the store and tore open one of the cash registers with a flick of a claw, rifling through it until she found a pen and some paper. She scribbled a short message onto the piece of paper and stuck it onto the machine, then turned back to her zerg.

"Alright, everyone, fun's over." She ordered, clapping her hands together and keeping her voice quiet, but authoritative - Goodwitch would have been proud. "When the roof's opened up, I want all of you to start loading the loot onto the Overlord - we'll head back to the hive cluster on foot while it carries all the food. Now everybody give the Baneling some space; it's high time we gave this place a new skylight."

The various aliens all moved aside at the blonde brawler's command, forming a rough semicircle about two dozen feet away from the pulsating zerg as their queen approached it, laying a hand on the top of its head.

Yang took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Seeing memories of Banelings exploding was one thing, but ordering zerg to commit suicide was yet another thing that was going to take a while for her to get used to.

"Alright, little guy." She told the bulbous alien, giving it one last scratch under the chin. "This is your moment. On the count of three, blow a hole in this place." The firestarter backed away from the Baneling to join the rest of her zerg at a safe distance from it, and began to count down out loud.

"One…" The bloated creature planted its pointed feet firmly onto the ground, hefting its glowing abdomen up into the air.

"Two…" The pulsating sac began to pulse more and more violently, swelling larger as the chemicals within the alien's abdomen began to churn and roil, glowing brighter and brighter until the whole supermarket was bathed in pale green light.

"...Three."

 _ **THOOM!**_

A massive explosion suddenly rocked the street from outside the store, drowning out the loud **BANG!** of the Baneling as it detonated moments afterward. The supermarket's storefront window shattered almost instantly from the shockwave of the larger blast, sending shards of glass flying through the empty store and pelting the zerg within. The Zerglings, along with Yang and Abathur, quickly dove (Or in Abathur's case, slithered) for cover, hiding behind or underneath the nearest shelves and tables, while the Roaches and Hydralisks simply hunkered down and stood strong against the razor-edged shower, their heavier armor resulting in only a few minor scratches.

"What... what the hell was _that?!_ " Yang shouted over the ensuring wail of an alarm sounding somewhere nearby, her ears still ringing a bit as she poked her head out from her hiding spot behind an emptied shelf.

 _"Down the street, My Queen!"_ The Queen shouted within the blonde firebrand's head, her monotone dropped in favor of genuine panic. _"Several Faunus have launched an attack on a store nearby! We must not let ourselves be spotted!"_

"Ah, crapbaskets." The zerg queen swore to herself, army-crawling towards the front of the store and peeking out from the gaping hole now in the front of the store. Sure enough, the entire front of a nearby Dust shop had been blown wide open, a wailing siren bathing the inside of the shop and the White Fang grunts within the building with intermittent flashes of scarlet light. Yang clenched her sharpened teeth: at any other time, she would be chomping at the bit to charge out and start cracking skulls, but she was at a severe disadvantage here. White Fang or no, the sight of alien monsters wreaking havoc in the streets would lead to widespread panic, search parties being organized. Several dozen zerg were a powerful fighting force, but the infested powerhouse still couldn't afford to have all of Patch, and most likely all of Remnant, breathing down her hive cluster's neck. Yang telepathically urged the Overlord to lower itself into the Baneling-made hole in the supermarket roof and motioned for the Roaches and Hydralisks to get down. No use in getting spotted at a time like this; the food could wait a few minutes more.

"C'mon, c'mon, move, move, move! Grab everything you can hold and get going, we've got a deadline to meet!" A woman with a pair of cat ears and her arms full of Dust canisters called out as she burst out of the door to the ransacked shop, quickly followed by three more goons similarly laden with canisters of Dust crystals in their arms and on their backs. The cat-eared terrorist stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled, and an Ursa adorned with crude metal armor and a red White Fang insignia painted on its massive right shoulder appeared from behind a street corner and thundered down the street, skidding to a halt in front of the ruined shop and looking up expectantly at the Faunus, as if it was waiting for orders.

The sight of the White Fang leader's cat ears elicited a growl from the firebrand as unpleasant memories of Blake began to rise to the surface, but her anger gave way to surprise at the sight of the armor-plated Grimm charging down the street. Alright, this was new. The White Fang had definitely gotten a considerable upgrade while she had been out of commission.

"Get everything onto the Ursa!" The feline Faunus shouted to what the zerg queen presumed were her subordinates. "Unless, of course, one of you lot wants to be the one to explain to the Lieutenant why we couldn't get the damn Dust before the cops got here!"

The three grunts nodded frantically at the threat, dashing over to the waiting Grimm and piling their ill-gotten gains into various saddlebags on its back - evidently, this 'Lieutenant' was someone that even the masked Faunus were afraid of. One soldier clambered up onto a saddle located rather precariously between the Ursa's shoulder blades and grabbed a pair of reins located on the sides of the equipment, totally unaware of Yang's position down the street as she raised her left arm to line up a Bonebolt on one of the Dust-filled canisters on the great shadowy monster's flank. Dammit, subtlety or not, this was almost too easy; one good shot, and the entire convoy would go up in flames. Nobody would suspect a thing - just a Dust robbery that went horribly wrong. If she missed and alerted the White Fang, though, well, at least she would have someone to pin the grocery store robbery on. The blonde powerhouse wet her lips and let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, squeezing one eye shut as she focused on her target. Steady… steady… almost…

 _ **"OI! WOT'RE YOU'Z DOIN' 'ERE, YA GROTZ?!"**_

* * *

 **And so I leave you all on a cliffhanger. I know, I'm a bastard. This was actually going to be much longer, but after thinking it over, I decided to break it into two smaller chapters; fortunately, that means that the second chapter _should_ be up a bit sooner than last time. Let's just say that things haven't been static while Yang was out; I've got plans ahead. Devious, devious plans...**

 **As a sidenote, though, this fic probably won't be updating as quickly as it used to. The reason that the first chapters were uploaded in such rapid succession was because I had written them out either completely or mostly beforehand; I still do have some chapters that have been written out at least partially, but they are for _way_ in the future. Also, I'm working on a multitude of other projects now, most of which involve giving our favorite blonde brawler a monstrous makeover and several of them being experiments in different types of stories to stretch my writing muscles, including a smut fic. And that's not even taking real life into account! Nevertheless, this story is  not dead; I would never leave you guys out to dry like that without at least telling you so.**

 **A big thank you to Ryuzaki 007 for helping me with ironing out ideas for this chapter and for many others down the line. You're the best, dude! And furthermore, a big heartfelt thank you is in order to _all_ of you - to every last person who gave this story a read, a favorite, a review, a watch, or all of the above. It's incredible to see this story of mine get so much support - I wish that I could personally thank each and every one of you! Now, on to the reviews!**

 **Phantomwa1ker: Nydus worms will be a thing, don't worry. As for your Dust ideas, these all look pretty good, save for the ice Dust - Yang's Roaches basically have that ability already with the Vile strain. (Yeah, I forgot to mention - the strains that Yang has are Raptor (Zergling), Vile (Roach), Hunterling (Baneling), Lurker (Hydralisk), Carrion (Swarm Host), Torrasque (Ultralisk), and both Vipers and Brood Lords (Mutalisk))**

 **Dracohalo117: Yeah, the grunts' dialogue wasn't 100% true. Yes, they do have Atlas in a bit of a situation, but they are by no means beaten yet.**

 **Earthrise: ...That's a great idea, actually!**

 **HolyKnight5: ...Oh, I'm imagining it, and it is _glorious._**

 **Prince Chrom: Honestly, the exact rate at which Grimm decompose in canon seems pretty nebulous. As such, I'm basically having most Beowolf-sized creatures dissolve in about fifteen minutes, with larger Grimm taking a longer time to do so, although exceptions, like the Beringel, do exist.**

 **S-Vile: I've got plans for that tower, don't you worry.**

 **Noitaerc: Oh, I can definitely use that! Thank you!**

 **As usual, leave a review if you have a suggestion, constructive criticism, or if you just feel like it! This is GlarnBoudin, signing out!**


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